Creative Couples' Intervention Significantly Helps People With Alzheimer's Communicate

A study published in the International Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry demonstrated that a creative in-home intervention to support couples affected by dementia can improve both caregiver and recipient communication behaviors in only 10 weeks, reports ScienceDaily . The Caring About Relationships and Emotions intervention was designed to boost helpful communication in the caregiver and sociable communication in the recipient, as well as to reduce disabling behavior in the caregiver and unsociable behavior in the recipient. Couples were given a manual at the beginning of the intervention with 10 weekly modules on various communication issues. Researchers met weekly with the recipient and caregiver separately, followed by a meeting with the couple together. The couples were asked to talk unobserved while being videotaped for about 10 minutes on a topic of their choosing at the end of the session. The team evaluated caregivers' learning needs, boosted their communication self-awareness, knowledge about communication decline in dementia, common care receiver emotional reactions to lost abilities, and how to use communication strategies to maintain a caring relationship. Researchers also conversed weekly with care recipients to encourage them to voice their thoughts, feelings, preferences, and needs. "This intervention is important because there are no other programs specifically developed for couples where one has Alzheimer's disease or dementia," says Florida Atlantic University Professor Christine L. Williams. "While marital counseling is available, it's very different when you have one partner who is losing their ability to communicate. We don't teach families how to communicate with someone with dementia and it is desperately needed."