Introduction
Psychological Models of Caregiver Stress
Effectiveness of Psychological Interventions for Dementia Family Caregivers
Psychoeducation | |
Caregivers are taught adaptive skills for coping with caregiving demands and stress using a structured format and is often delivered in small groups including time for didactics and practice. The topics covered usually includes information about dementia and community services, learning to take time for self, improving communication with family, and skills for managing problem behaviors. More specialized skills such as anger management, thought modification, and pleasant event scheduling may also be covered | |
Counseling and psychotherapy | |
Individual and family counseling/psychotherapy is provided by trained providers to help caregivers manage stress and for the treatment of distress such as depression. This modality is often used for caregivers with clinical depression or other significant mental health problems. | |
Multicomponent interventions | |
These interventions consist of several established intervention strategies blended together in order to address a variety of caregiver needs. Ideally, the different strategies should be integrated in a fashion to enhance treatment efficacy. Education, skills training, counseling, problem-solving, support group, home modification, and “health passport” are some of the components that may be included | |
Mindfulness-based interventions | |
Caregivers are trained in mindfulness (mostly Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction) or other meditation strategies with the basic aim of paying attention to the present momentary experience on purpose and nonjudgmentally. Experiences (thoughts, emotions, behaviors, etc.) are observed without being judged as good or bad with a final aim of relieving suffering |