End-of-life Intervention for African American Dementia Caregivers

Community-based End-of-Life Intervention for African American Dementia Caregivers

In a community-based approach, the investigators long-term goal is to empower African American family caregivers who are designated healthcare proxies to make informed end-of-life treatment decisions for participants with moderate to severe dementia before a life-threatening medical crisis occurs.

The investigators conducted a randomized controlled trial for efficacy of the Advance Care Treatment Program in an African American church-based community model. The investigators compared the effect of the experimental and control groups on knowledge, self-efficacy, intentions and behaviors from 4 urban African American churches randomly assigned to experimental (n=2) or control (n=2) conditions,304 (experimental n=152; control (n=152) health care proxies of participants that have advanced stage dementia: (a) were concurrently recruited in small classes each with 8-9 healthcare proxies.

"Inclusion Criteria"

• Caregiver spouse or adult child of care recipient
• Caregiver knowledgeable about care recipient's medical history
• Care recipient must be African American
• Care recipient must have moderate to severe stage dementia
• Care recipient must lack decisional capacity

"Exclusion Criteria"

• Not a caregiver
• Care recipient not African American,
• Care recipient without moderate to severe dementia