Engaging Older Adults with Alzheimer's Disease in Exercise: Impact on Caregivers

Abstract

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.