Intervention to Delay Nursing Home Placement…

A family intervention to delay nursing home placement of patients with alzheimer’s disease: A randomized controlled trial

Citation Mittelman, M., Ferris, S., Shulman, E., Steinberg, G., Levin, B. (1996). A family intervention to delay nursing home placement of patients with alzheimer’s disease – A randomized controlled trial. The Journal of the American Association, 276(21), 1725-1731.

Design Randomized controlled study

Participants The participants of this study were N=206 caregivers, spouses of persons with Alzheimer’s disease

Outcome / Dependent Variables The dependent variable was time from enrollment of caregiver in the study to placement of person with Alzheimer’s disease in a nursing home

Procedure The intervention consisted of 2 individual and 4 family counseling sessions tailored to caregiver’s situation, support group participation and continuous availability of ad hoc telephone counseling

Outcomes Median time from baseline to nursing home placement of AD patients was 329 days longer in the treatment group than in the control group. Caregivers were approx two-thirds as likely to place their spouses in nursing homes at any point in time if they were in the treatment group than if they were in the control group.

Author Mittelman, M., Ferris, S., Shulman, E., Steinberg, G., Levin, B.