NYU Study Shows the Importance of Caring for Caregivers

Caring for an Alzheimer's patient can be both physically and emotionally draining to the point where the caregiver can become seriously ill. A new study led by Mary S. Mittelman, Dr.P.H., Research Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at New York University School of Medicine focused on this problem and the study shows that counseling and support are important factors in keeping the caregivers healthy.

It is especially important when the caregiver is a spouse, because they tend to be an older adult.

Caregivers who participated in the NYU study had less of a decline in their physical health that those who received the usual care.

Dr. Mittleman has been looking into this problem for 20 years. It is the longest study ever devoted to testing programs to help the caregivers.

The study involved 406 caregivers of people with Alzheimer's disease. All of them are spouses. They were evenly divided into two groups. Group one received enhanced counseling and support which included six sessions of both individual and family counseling as well as support groups and telephone counseling when the caregiver needed extra support.

Group number two had the usual care, meaning that they received information and help only when they requested it and they did not get any formal counseling sessions.

Results from previous years of the study have shown that the caregivers who participated in the enhanced group were able to delay putting their spouse into a nursing home by 1 ½ years longer then those in the other group that did not get the extra counseling. These studies also showed that the ones in the group with the support had much fewer cases of depression than the other group. Results from the new study show that it can also help with the caregivers physical as well as mental health.