Evaluating an Educational Intervention With Relatives of Persons in the Early Stages of Alzheimer’s Disease

Abstract

The objective of this article was to describe the results of an educational intervention for family caregivers of persons in the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease. A total of 58 family caregivers participated in this intervention, which consisted of five weekly educational sessions about the disease and various aspects of caregiving. Measures of knowledge about Alzheimer’s disease, reactions to patients’ impairments, and levels of depression at pretest, posttest, and follow-up at 9 months posttest were analyzed. The results showed that modest benefits were derived by participants at the three points in time, with knowledge about the disease improving significantly, reactions to patients’ impairments improving slightly, and level of depression increasing slightly. This preliminary study reveals that the educational intervention has merit for family caregivers coping with the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease, but new or different outcome measures could possibly better assess its impact.

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