Telephonic Remote Evaluation of Neuropsychological Deficits (TREND): longitudinal monitoring of elderly community-dwelling volunteers using touch-tone telephones.

Use of interactive voice response (IVR) technology to monitor cognitive functioning in cognitively normal (CN), mild cognitive impairment (MCI), and mild dementia (MD) participants was examined using 107 community-dwelling participants, 65 to 88 years old. Baseline Clinical Dementia Ratings identified 36 participants as CN, 37 with MCI, and 34 as MD. Alzheimer's Disease Assessment Scale (ADAS) and Mini-Mental State Examinations were administered during clinic visits at weeks 0, 8, 16, and 24. IVR cognitive testing was completed at each visit and from participants' homes at weeks 4, 12, and 20. Study partners provided dementia symptoms severity ratings via IVR. The assessment system received 719 participant and 723 partner calls. All calls initiated by CN participants, 99.2% by MCI participants, and 87.3% by MD participants were completed. Telephonic Remote Evaluation of Neuropsychological Deficit tasks showed significant performance differences between participant groups, good reliability, and convergent validity with Mini-Mental State Examinations and ADAS-Cog measures. Automated cognitive testing calls took about 18 minutes to complete, and informant calls took approximately 4 minutes. IVR informant data were convergent with the ADAS-Noncog measure. Computer-automated assessments of cognitive functioning via IVR provided reliable, valid data. Such assessments might benefit routine clinical care and large-scale, longitudinal research in the future, but will require additional research over longer periods.

Impact of in-home behavioral management versus telephone support to reduce depressive symptoms and perceived stress in Chinese caregivers: results of a pilot study.

OBJECTIVE: Recent work has shown that Chinese Americans caring for a family member with dementia experience considerable psychological distress. However, few studies evaluate treatments for them. This study evaluated the efficacy of in-home intervention, based on cognitive behavior therapy principles, to relieve stress and depression in female Chinese American caregivers (CGs). METHODS: Fifty-five CGs who met inclusion criteria were randomly assigned to a telephone support condition (TSC) or to an in-home behavioral management program (IHBMP) for 4 months. In the TSC, biweekly calls were made and relevant material was mailed. In the IHBMP, specific psychological skills were taught to deal with caregiving stress. CGs were assessed before and after treatment. Outcome measures evaluated overall perceived stress, caregiving-specific stress, and depressive symptoms. RESULTS: CGs in IHBMP were less bothered by caregiving-specific stressors and had lower depression levels than CGs in TSC. There was no difference in overall stress. CGs with low baseline level of self-efficacy for obtaining respite benefited from IHBMP, but showed little improvement in the TSC. CGs with higher self-efficacy benefited from both treatments. CONCLUSION: This intervention is promising and warrants replication in future studies. Additional research is needed to evaluate longer-term effects and to identify individual differences associated with improvement.

Recruiting Chinese Americans for dementia caregiver intervention research: suggestions for success.

OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this study was to compare the relative effectiveness of three recruitment modalities for enrolling Chinese-American and white family caregivers into research studies to evaluate intervention strategies. METHODS: A total of 116 Chinese Americans and 134 whites were screened for eligibility to participate in one of two clinical intervention trials. Participants were recruited using: 1) media sources; 2) nonprofessional referral sources; or 3) professional referrals. Each participant was asked an open-ended question about how they became aware of the programs offered. RESULTS: A smaller proportion of Chinese Americans (39%) than whites (50%) who responded to recruiting strategies actually enrolled as subjects. There was a significant interaction between ethnicity and recruitment strategy. Chinese-American caregivers who were recruited by nonprofessional sources were less likely to enroll in the intervention studies than those who were recruited through media sources or professional referrals. Whites, on the other hand, were more likely to be recruited through nonprofessional sources than the other two. CONCLUSIONS: A consumer-oriented approach, which included direct face-to-face contact with key community leaders, generated the highest number of Chinese-American participants. Culture-specific factors such as trust-building with social service agencies, demonstrating genuine commitment to the well-being of the target community, and linguistic and ethnic matching between research staff and potential participants appear helpful to successful research recruitment in this rapidly increasing segment of dementia caregivers.