Browsing by Subject "Caregiver"

Now showing 1 - 3 of 3
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    Engaging Older Adults with Alzheimer's Disease in Exercise: Impact on Caregivers
    (2022-05) Sims, Tai
    In 2020, over 11 million informal caregivers cared for 6.5 million older adults with Alzheimer’s disease in America. By 2050 the number of older adults with Alzheimer’s disease is projected to double, which will demand the need for more informal caregivers. Family most often serve as informal caregivers. Informal caregiving is associated with increased burden, and poorer wellbeing and overall health. Interventions that target family caregivers of people with Alzheimer’s disease have shown minimal benefit on caregiver outcomes. Interventions that target people with Alzheimer’s disease, often neglect examining the intervention’s impact on family caregivers. In particular, exercise interventions have shown some promise in improving cognition and physical function of people with Alzheimer’s disease; however, little is known on how such interventions impact family caregivers. The purpose of this mixed methods study was to evaluate the impact of a 6 month, moderate intensity aerobic exercise intervention for community-dwelling older adults with Alzheimer’s disease on caregiver burden, wellbeing and general health. The study results were mixed across quantitative and qualitative data for caregiver burden and wellbeing. However, the findings suggest that improved caregiver burden and wellbeing may have been a consequence of perceived benefits of respite time and social support received by both study groups, rather than changes in care-recipients as a result of the exercise intervention. Both quantitative and qualitative data indicated the exercise intervention did not influence caregivers’ general health. This study provides some insight that integrating a family caregiver component into community-based exercise programs has the potential to benefit both people with Alzheimer’s disease and their family caregivers.
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    Examination of the Effectiveness of Physical Activity Interventions on the Wellbeing of Caregivers of Older Adults: A Meta-Analysis
    (2021-06) Marshall, Elaine
    Caregivers of older adults afflicted with a variety of chronic physical and mental health conditions provide vital support and assistance for this growing population. Although essential, many individuals in this time-consuming role are unprepared older adults themselves, which creates significant burdens on their own mental and physical health. Caregivers are at risk for depression, loneliness, and reduced health related to chronic stress. Evidence suggests that physical activity (PA) interventions alleviate aspects of this burden and psychological distress, as well as provide benefits to physical health. However, there are notable limitations in the previous reviews that have attempted to synthesize the evidence for the benefits of PA interventions. Using meta-analytic methodology, this study investigated and quantified the impact of PA interventions on different domains of mental and physical health for caregivers of older adults. A comprehensive search yielded 25 controlled studies. PA interventions led to small-to-medium effects on mental health, with the most notable impact on quality of life. PA interventions led to trivial effects on physical health, with small but significant effects found for mobility outcomes. Moderator analyses revealed that yoga interventions, study quality, and duration of interventions had significant moderating effects. PA interventions appear to be effective for improving caregiver health, particularly in relation to psychological health. Further high-quality research using standardized measures for health domains is needed to determine the type, format, and length of PA interventions that best serve different caregiving populations.
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    Left ventricular assist device therapy: family caregivers' stress, perceived burden and quality of life.
    (2011-04) Petty, Michael Glenn
    Background: Individuals implanted with left ventricular assist devices (LVADs) as bridge to transplant or as destination therapy expect to be discharged home. Responsibility for providing care to those patients has fallen almost exclusively to family caregivers. Yet there is a paucity of research on the experience of family caregivers of LVAD patients. This study assessed the burden and quality of life (QOL) of caregivers over a period of up to 6 months. The influence of stress and select demographic variables on those outcomes was also evaluated. Methods: Subjects recruited from a single LVAD center in the upper Midwest were required to be > 18 years old, the identified primary caregiver of an LVAD patient, and able to read and write English. Each was asked to complete a questionnaire at baseline and again at 2, 6, 14 and 22 weeks after the baseline measure. Measures included demographics, the Caregiver Distress Scale, the Caregiver Involvement Instrument, the Caregiver Burden Assessment, the Cantril Ladder scale, the CES-D, and the SF-12. Results: A total of 46 subjects provided data for analysis. The average caregiver was a 58 year old Caucasian female spouse of a bridge-to-transplant patient with a HeartMate II living with the patient and one other adult with an average income of $40,000-$59,999. Stress was mildly to moderately elevated over the entire period. Baseline burden was measured at levels that warranted intervention in up to 41% of participants, but decreased steadily over time (p=.04). Sixty to eighty-five percent of subjects reported below average quality of life that was largely static across the study. Stress was negatively correlated with QOL. (p=.004) Conclusions: Interventions to reduce stress are most likely to improve caregiver quality of life.