Supportive Care for Cognitively Impaired Patients and Families

Supportive Care for Cognitively Impaired Patients and Families

Currently almost 5 million Americans suffer from the distressing symptoms related to dementia and this number that will triple by 2050. The overall goals of the proposed project are to evaluate, in community dwelling Alzheimer's Disease Research Center participants the benefits of a 12-month nurse-led early palliative intervention on symptoms, quality of life, health care resource use. The relevance of this research to public health is that there is an urgent need to improve the palliative care of persons with dementia living in the community. This study will contribute substantially to that effort.

200 persons who participate in the Stanford ADRC will be recruited and randomized 100 each to usual care (UC) or {usual care plus an early palliative care intervention} (EPC) to be delivered by a nurse over a twelve-month period. The EPC will include one nurse-led palliative consult for a two-hour virtual session followed by 11 monthly 30-minute phone/video sessions plus usual care. The study aims are to determine whether EPC will lead to (a) eliciting and alleviating the supportive care needs of patients, (b) elicit their goals of care and help them complete and sign (with witnesses) their Advance Directives and the POLST (signed by the patient/proxy and their doctor) upload these into the electronic health records. Exploratory outcomes will include health resource use (e.g. hospital admissions and days, emergency visits) for the participants and caregiver burden for their caregivers. Mixed-methods framework will be utilized to analyze the audiotapes of the encounters between the research nurse and the patient during the twelve intervention sessions and to assess whether the information that is provided to participants differs by patient ethnicity and cognitive levels.

Inclusion Criteria:

• All patients enrolled in the Stanford Alzheimers Disease Research Center (SADRC).
• All caregivers enrolled in the Stanford Alzheimers Disease Research Center (SADRC).

Exclusion Criteria:

1. Institutionalized (not a community dweller) at the time of entry into the study;
2. Have severe dementia and are incapable of responding to the outcome measures at baseline. 3. Participants who live alone and don't have a proxy will be excluded only if they are deemed as lacking the capacity to provide informed consent at the time of entry into the study.