Active clinical trials for "Caregiver Burden"

The goal of this project is to pilot test CHEC (Collaborative Healthcare Encounters with Caregivers) in primary care. CHEC is brief intervention with two components: 1) a checklist to identify the needs and concerns of unpaid/family caregivers who accompany older patients (aged 65+) to their primary care visits and 2) accompanying Tip Sheet for clinicians.

Rationale: Healthcare workers that care for patients with COVID-19 are at increased risk for stress-related symptoms. When these symptoms are chronic, they can result in burnout and other mental health conditions that can exacerbate the current national health crisis. Social distancing can limit the accessibility of mental health services. Feasible and effective interventions are needed to reduce stress-related symptoms and promote resilience in this population, while adhering to federal and local guidelines to mitigate the transmission of SARS-CoV-2. Objectives: To investigate the feasibility and efficacy of a combined nature-based and virtual mindfulness intervention on stress-related symptoms and psychological resilience in healthcare workers that care for patients with COVID-19. Both components are reported to reduce levels of perceived stress and increase psychological resilience; however, the potential additive effect of their combined delivery is unknown. Methods: Ninety healthcare workers will be randomized into one of three groups: Nature+Mindfulness (n=30), Nature only (n=30), and Control (n=30). All participants will undergo assessments at baseline (week 0), post nature intervention (~week 1), and post mindfulness intervention (~week 3). The two intervention groups will have one final assessment at 2-month follow-up (~week 11). Perceived stress is the primary endpoint and will be assessed with the Perceived Stress Scale. Secondary endpoints include sleep quality, burnout, posttraumatic stress, anxiety, depression, mindfulness, self-efficacy, and psycho-social-spiritual healing. Anticipated Results: We anticipate that participants in the Nature+Mindfulness group will have greater reductions in stress-related symptoms and greater increases in psychological resilience compared with the Nature only and Control groups.

This study evaluates the effectiveness of a caregiver outreach, training, and support program for caregivers of people with dementia who are using antipsychotic medication to manage agitation/aggression. The Investigators will conduct a randomized trial of the caregiver program compared to a control group to measure differences in caregiver burden and discontinuation of antipsychotic medication use. The results will help in expanding access to and delivery of empirically supported behavioral health services for caregivers and people with dementia.

The purpose of this study is to determine the feasibility and acceptability of delivering the KINDER intervention to family caregivers to persons living with dementia. Further, the investigators will examine the preliminary efficacy of the KINDER intervention at improving caregiver resourcefulness, relationship quality, and quality of care, including reduction of potential verbal-type elder mistreatment. During this study, participants will be asked to complete two (2) 30- to 45-minute surveys asking about their demographic information, caregiving situations, and relationship with the care recipient. The first survey will be sent within two weeks of beginning the KINDER intervention, the second will be sent within one week after participants complete the KINDER intervention so we can compare outcomes.

The objective of this study is to evaluate the feasibility and stress reduction impacts of a yoga and support group intervention on caregivers of individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities.

The current body of research fails to acknowledge or understand what type of care children are giving to their siblings, yet it appears to be a common practice in many cultures. To address this gap, we propose to examine the role and activities children provide to siblings with a chronic illness or disability. Additionally, we seek to better understand what preparation, training, or support (either formal or informal) are provided to siblings who are actively engaged in the caregiving process. We will further examine indicators for quality of relationship between the two siblings and examine themes and associations. We will accomplish this through a mixed-methods design with the four following aims: Aim 1: Describe the role and activities of children (ages 7 to 17) while providing care for a sibling with a chronic illness or disability. Through a descriptive qualitative inquiry, we will ascertain details and experiences on caregiving from the perspective of the parent and the sibling (separately) regarding the care the sibling provides to the child with a chronic illness. Themes of connection, friendship, direct medical and physical care (such as feeding) will be explored. Open ended questions which support the aim will be asked indirectly and directly, such as, "What does your day look like when you are getting ready to go somewhere" verses "Can you describe how you help your sibling each day." Aim 2: Investigate ways in which children are educated, trained, or supported in their caregiving role. Both qualitative information and quantitative data will be gathered as guided by Aim 1. For example, if a sibling indicates they provide feeding support, they will be asked questions such as, "How did you learn or know how to help feed them?" Informants will also be asked questions regarding how often and how long they spend caring for their sibling using a Likert-type scale. Aim 3: Explore quality indicators of sibling relationship from the caregiving perspective. Parents (main caregiver) will be asked to complete a demographic survey and the sibling inventory of behavior survey, a psychometrically validated tool to measure indicators of the sibling relationship. Qualitative data from aims 1 and 2 and quantitative data from aim 2 will be used to understand how specific themes may positively or negatively be associated with a positive sibling relationship, as a positive sibling relationship serves as a protective factor for sibling outcomes10. Aim 4: Determine to what extent the quantitative data about parental-perceived sibling relationships converge with or diverge from the qualitative data about care provided by the sibling. For the mixed-methods data analysis, a joint display will be created to show a side-by-side comparison of the quantitative, qualitative, and integrated findings. Points of concordance, discordance, and expansion will provide rich insights into caregiving provided by siblings.

The WELL program is a multi-strategy early childhood education (ECE) center-based intervention focused on ensuring that formal ECE providers prioritize their own self-care and well-being and have access to resources and supports that improve their skills to have stable and responsive relationships with young children in their care. The overarching goals of this proposed project include: To utilize Head Start-University partnerships to investigate constructs within the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) Worker Wellbeing framework (e.g., Workplace Physical Environment and Safety Climate, Workplace Policies and Culture) among Head Start staff (n=360 Head Start staff) that are most associated with overall well-being. To adapt and refine the WELL program to target specific constructs that are most significantly related to overall well-being among the ECE workforce identified in Aim 1 and then to test the effectiveness of WELL (n=36 Head Start centers; n=360 Head Start staff). To collect data to inform the implementation and dissemination of the WELL project research findings and products and initiate translation activities to achieve large-scale adoption.

Financial and legal management for persons with dementia (PwD) is a crucial responsibility of caregivers. This responsibility adds to the stress and strain of caregiving. Current technology tools that help with bill management and budgeting often require a high degree of technical expertise and provide an insufficient degree of personal support to address the caregivers' needs. Current approaches to financial management are typically aimed at technologically savvy millennials rather than caregivers. Additionally, these approaches do not address the need for safe and accessible storage of legal documents. Thus, the current solutions available for these tasks are a mismatch for caregivers. The investigators will address the lack of effective financial management and legal support for caregivers of PwD. Using proprietary technology, SilverBills receives, scrutinizes, stores, and pays bills on behalf of clients. The goal of this project is to decrease the stress and strain on caregivers of PwD, by providing a simple, safe, and effective financial and legal management tool. The investigators aim to build an easy to use, customizable, client facing application for caregivers to direct the financial activities of PwD. In addition, The investigators will enhance the capabilities of the application to reconcile banking information, detect fraud, secure data, provide enhanced reporting capabilities and provide further budgeting and planning functionality. Finally, in collaboration with researchers from the University of Denver, The investigators will assess caregiver burden and physical, financial, and emotional distress. The team supporting Silverbills V2 includes expertise in elder law, business development, Ruby on Rails software engineering, financial security and cognitive health, caregiving, research design and statistics. The work proposed should demonstrate that the SilverBills V2 product will: 1) Provide a financial management tool which includes a messaging system and vault of critical documents for caregivers of PwD and/or older adults, and 2) Evaluate the effectiveness of our product to decrease caregiver stress and increase caregiver quality of life. This team will support the rigorous scientific validation which will potentially provide evidence of our innovation and support this critical work to provide technological tools for financial and legal management to caregivers of PwD.

The purpose of this study is to examine relationships between contextual stressors and stress moderators, depression symptom experience, resilience, frailty, and quality of life among older sexual gender minorities cancer survivors and their care partners.

Individuals with mild cognitive impairment are often physically inactive and at risk for progressing to dementia. Physical inactivity is considered a modifiable risk factor for dementia. Therefore, interventions must be developed to foster sustainable improvement in daily physical activity. To address this problem, our pilot study aims are directed at assessing the feasibility and preliminary improvement of physical activity following the use of a mobile-health technology physical activity behavior change intervention. Similar interventions have shown to be very effective in older adults without cognitive impairment. We specifically focus on the subtype of amnestic mild cognitive impairment since this subtype often progresses to Alzheimer's Disease, a leading cause of death in the US. Improving physical activity is one approach to reduce the progression to Alzheimer's Disease and subsequently lower mortality. To increase the impact of the intervention, participants with amnestic mild cognitive impairment will be recruited along with a primary caregiver (dyads). Thirty dyads will be recruited and randomized to either an intervention group (15 dyads) or usual care group (15 dyads). The intervention group will receive a 12-week mobile-health technology physical activity behavior change intervention structured to improve physical activity. The intervention is unique in the combination of established behavior change theories and techniques and remote delivery for individuals with amnestic mild cognitive impairment. This pilot study is designed to assess the feasibility of the intervention by examining participant and primary caregiver retention, intervention session attendance, intervention acceptability and safety, and qualitative perspectives. Secondly, this pilot study will assess preliminary improvement in physical activity (i.e., daily steps). Improvement will be determined based on significant changes in participants' daily steps observed via accelerometry post-intervention in the intervention group compared to the usual care control group. The results of this study will support future work (K-award and R01 submissions) to explore efficacy and larger-scale implementation to reach rural and underserved areas of Nebraska and beyond.