MIND: An RCT of Care Coordination for Community-living Person With Dementia

Over 5 million older Americans currently suffer from Alzheimer's disease and related dementias with 80% receiving care in the community by 15 million informal caregivers (CGs) providing unpaid care. Dementia is associated with high health care costs, long term care (LTC) placement, medical complications, reduced quality of life, and CG burden. Patient and family centric care models tailored to dementia that address the multidimensional aspects of dementia management, and link health and community care are understudied but may represent a promising mechanism to address the multiple and on-going needs of this growing population, reduce adverse outcomes such as premature LTC placement, and produce cost benefits.

This is a definitive Phase III efficacy trial to test Maximizing Independence at Home-Streamlined (MIND-S), a home- based, care coordination intervention for community-living persons with dementia (PWD) and their family CGs that builds on pilot work. In a pilot trial, MIND at Home was successfully implemented in a diverse sample of 303 community-living individuals with memory disorders and was found to be acceptable to CGs, led to delays in time to transition from home, improved PWD quality of life, and CG time savings.

The current project is a 24-month, prospective, single- blind, parallel group, randomized controlled trial evaluating MIND-S in a cohort of 300 community-living PWD and their informal CGs in the Greater Baltimore area. Participants receiving MIND-S will get up to 18 months of care coordination by an interdisciplinary team comprised of trained memory care coordinators (non-clinical), a psychiatric nurse, and geriatric psychiatrist. The intervention involves 4 key components: identification of needs and individualized care planning (PWD and CG needs); dementia education and skill building; coordination, referral and linkage of services; and care monitoring.Participants in the comparison group will receive an initial in-home needs assessment and will be given the written results along with any recommendations for care that are indicated.