Using Technology to Support Care Partners for Persons With Alzheimer's Disease: Tele-STELLA

Providing care for a family member with Alzheimer's disease and related dementias (ADRD, aka, "dementia") is both rewarding and risky. Care Partners exposed to chronic stress, often over years, are susceptible to physical and psychological ailments. Effective interventions that reduce Care Partner burden and health risks are available, but various factors impede participation, including distance, cost, behavioral symptoms of dementia, stigma and social anxiety. Recognizing the need to reduce barriers to access, scientists have turned to Internet-based interventions. Recent research indicates that multi-component, technology-facilitated interventions which allow Care Partner engagement with health professionals are effective and favored by Care Partners. However, a minority of telehealth-based interventions allow for health professional engagement and, of these, only a handful provide real-time interaction. Further, Hopwood et al. concluded that, despite the fact that family needs vary across ADRD stages, the interventions reviewed were not targeted to specific stages of dementia.

To address the needs of families living with dementia, the investigators have completed two pilot studies using Internet-based Care Partner interventions. These studies tested the feasibility and consumer acceptability of the evidence-based, STAR-C intervention, the precursor to Tele-STELLA, when delivered via telehealth. Qualitative data revealed the telehealth intervention was acceptable to Care Partners and preferred over a potential in-home intervention. The investigators found that burden was reduced, but depression was not. This may be because the interaction with the Guide formally ended after Session 8, leaving Care Partners with a sense of isolation, as this one commented: "I went through withdrawals… I wanted to call her (the Guide)-who can I turn to?" The prototype interventions did not include meaningful opportunities for Care Partners to interact with each other post-intervention. Care Partners felt their support vanished and did not like "the fact that it was over." Care Partners advised that future interventions should include both one-to-one sessions and one-to-multiple sessions.

Based on the qualitative and quantitative data from the pilot work, Tele-STELLA was designed to address the specific needs of families living with moderate to severe dementia. Tele-STELLA is a multi-component, tailored intervention that begins with one-to-one sessions with each Care Partner and Guide, then links Care Partners to each other in a meaningful way to sustain support post intervention. Tele-STELLA is designed for families living in the later stages of dementia, where behavioral symptoms are more prominent and distressing.

The ultimate goal of this study is to diminish the frequency of behavioral symptoms that persons with dementia experience, and Care Partner reactivity to these symptoms. Based on Kales et al. framework, behavioral symptoms arise from unmet needs, overburdened Care Partners and environmental factors, all within the context of cultural background and beliefs. Behavioral symptoms are bidirectional in that the person with dementia's behaviors affects the Care Partner's behaviors and vice versa. The investigators hypothesize that addressing these factors will reduce behavioral symptom frequency, and, in turn, Care Partner reactivity to them, resulting in reduced Care Partner burden, depression and grief.

Tele-STELLA allows all study activities to be done in Care Partners' homes, using videoconferencing, email and phones. This includes assessments of burden and depression using electronic versions of classic measures. No visits to university sites are needed.