Just last week, we awarded a special type of grant we call an Every Day Technologies for Alzheimer’s Care grant to Dolores Gallagher-Thompson, Ph.D., professor of research in the department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Science at Stanford University for her project “Global Caregiving: iSupport for Dementia Family Caregivers.”
Caregiving for a family member with Alzheimer’s disease is a worldwide issue, and the needs of family caregivers far outpace the support from health systems, particularly in low and middle-income countries.
With this grant, Dr. Gallagher-Thompson is teaming up with the World Health Organization to develop an interactive, web-based caregiver support tool (iSupport) that is accessible via computer, tablet and mobile phone. They hope to conduct a trial with 430 users in Bangalore, India where internet penetration is high and collaboration is secured with the NIMHANS Alzheimer’s research center. This project will compare the iSupport interactive tool to more traditional caregiver education materials.
The ultimate goal of the study will be to reduce caregiver stress measured by the Zarit Burden Scale [6]. This tool can be immediately disseminated within India, and readily scaled to other countries, potentially affecting millions of caregivers.
For more about the Alzheimer’s Association research grants program, visit www.alz.org/research [7].
Helpful information related to this story
Alzheimer’s Association Research Center [7]
More about Dr. Gallagher-Thompson [8]
More about Dr. Gallagher Thompson’s Alzheimer’s Association-funded study [9]