Drs. Raksha Mudar, Mina Raj, and Wendy Rogers received funding from the Retirement Research Foundation for a proposal which seeks to test the impact of video technologies between family care partners and older adults with dementia.  More details below:

Title: Video Technology-based Social Engagement Intervention for Family Care Partners of Persons with Dementia

Investigators: Raksha A. Mudar, Ph.D., Minakshi Raj, Ph.D., & Wendy A. Rogers, Ph.D. (University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign)

Summary: Millions of family care partners of persons with dementia sacrifice their own needs and social and mental well-being to support their loved ones. Support groups and associated educational activities focused on caregiving offer a lifeline to cope with the burden of caregiving and are relevant to the life circumstances of the care partners; however, they do not serve the social engagement needs of these care partners beyond their caregiver role. Thus, the overall objective of our project is to test the benefits of a video technology-based social engagement intervention for family care partners of persons with dementia (PwD). Our intervention will provide social engagement opportunities on topics of interest (e.g., hobbies, traditions) unrelated to caregiving. To achieve this objective, we will address the following two aims:

Aim 1: Understand facilitators and barriers to the adoption of a video technology-based social engagement intervention for care partners of PwD.

• Outcome 1: To align intervention implementation protocols with the preferences, interests, capabilities, and limitations of the care partners.
• Outcome 2: To develop standardized manuals and staff training materials to test interventions in Aim 2 while maintaining intervention fidelity.

Aim 2: Evaluate the overall benefits of a 6-week video technology-based social engagement intervention for 75 care partners of PwD.

• Outcome 3: To establish the benefits of video technology-based social engagement intervention on social health, emotional health, cognitive health, and quality of life before community-based implementation.