Learning to become a family care-giver of a person recently diagnosed from Alzheimer’s disease: How a web-based intervention can help?

2^nd International Conference on Health Informatics and Technology

July 27-29, 2015 Valencia, Spain

Véronique Dubé and Francine Ducharme

ScientificTracks Abstracts-Workshop: J Health Med Informat

Abstract :

It has been known for several years that the support and care of a person diagnosed from Alzheimerâ??s disease are provided by family members, and often to the detriment of their own health and quality of life. The multiple responsibilities of care-givers are often perceived as stressors that require a repertoire of coping mechanisms. Over the last few years, a team from the Desjardins research chair in nursing care for seniors and their families has developed and evaluated a number of psychoeducational interventions striving to support family caregivers. Recently, the team explored an innovative approach by using information and communication technologies. A psycho-educational web-based intervention program promoting the adaptation to the care-giversâ?? role of a person recently diagnosed with Alzheimerâ??s disease was designed. A pilot study assessed its implementation process and evaluated its effects on selected indicators of caregiversâ?? adaptation. The intervention program was offered to 20 care-givers who received an online training and tutoring by a healthcare professional over a period of seven weeks. Focused readings and exercises allowed family caregivers to acquire new supportive strategies based on their daily experiences as a care-giver. A brief description of the web sessions of this educational program will be presented as well as examples of the use of the web-based learning platform by family caregivers. This intervention approach, complementary to other types of interventions has several advantages, particularly for care-givers who are geographically distant from healthcare services and who have limited access to support groups or individual face to face interventions.

Biography :

Dubé was a scholarship recipient of the Hospital Foundation of the University of Montreal (CHUM) and a doctoral fellowship from the accompanying National Researcher award from the FRSQ assigned Francine Ducharme, Ph. D. She also a fellow of the Faculty of Nursing at the University of Montreal (purse Evelyn Adam-2007 scholarship Virginia Allaire 2010), the Interuniversity Research Group Nursing Intervention Quebec (GRISIIQ; 2007-2008 and 2008-2009) and the Ministry of Education, Leisure and Sport (MELS) in2009-2010 and 2011-2012. She also earned a scholarship to support the dissemination of research results of the Quebec Network for Research on Aging (RQRV) and recently she received the fellowship of Health Research Institutes to Canada.