Technology improves caregiver experience for families dealing with dementia

Technology is available to assist with nearly every facet of modern life, including helping prevent people with dementia from wandering and alerting their caregivers when they do.

Studies have found that this technology-which usually involves wearable devices with a GPS and similarly non-invasive sensors-reduces the emotional strain of those caring for a family member with dementia.

This is important, given that about 6.9 million Americans age 65 and older are living with Alzheimer's disease, and rates of Alzheimer's and other forms of dementia are increasing. In addition, family caregivers of people with dementia experience more stress and worse physical and mental health compared to others.

Until now, little has been known about how dementia caregivers use these products and how beneficial they find them.

Now, new insight into user satisfaction with one such brand-Theora Care-is available, thanks to a pilot study funded by the Texas Alzheimer's Research and Care Consortium and led by researchers with the Texas A&M University School of Public Health.

The Theora Care system provides a wearable device for the person with dementia, which is paired with a smartphone application that alerts the caregiver if the person has wandered. The system also enables communication between the two.

"This focus on increasing the situational awareness for both the caregiver and the person with dementia is a new innovation in this type of technology," said Matthew Lee Smith, PhD, a professor of health behavior who helped conduct the study. "Our goal was to find out how usable caregivers found this technology, and their overall satisfaction with it."

In addition to Smith, the team comprised Texas A&M researchers Marcia G. Ory, PhD, Regents and Distinguished Professor, and staff member Ashley D. Wilson and postdoctoral fellow Chung Lin Kew-all from the Center for Community Health and Aging-and colleagues from the University of North Texas, University of Texas at Austin Dell Medical School and University of Utah.

Their study, which was implemented from Sept. 1, 2018, to Dec. 31, 2021, involved 41 dyads consisting of people living with dementia and their family caregivers in three sites in Texas. The caregivers' average age was 66 years, 78.7 percent were female, 95.2 percent were Caucasian and 61.9 percent had at least a four-year college degree. The care recipients' average age was 76.77 years, 57.6 percent were male, 96.8 percent were Caucasian, and 58.7 percent had at least a four-year college degree.

About 79 percent of caregivers reported living with their care recipient, who was their spouse or partner (66.7 percent) or parent (28.6 percent). They also reported providing an average of 5.7 hours per day of caregiving.

Those receiving care then wore a GPS-based device (resembling a smartwatch) that also had an S.O.S. emergency calling function. Their caregivers downloaded a smartphone application that informed them of the location of their care recipient, set physical boundaries that triggered smartphone notifications when crossed and enabled immediate communication with care recipients who wandered.

After three months of using the system, the caregivers completed a telephone interview in which they provided information about how often they used the system and its tracking, "safe zone" and two-way calling features. They also provided feedback regarding the system's ease of use, usefulness in caregiving and their overall satisfaction.

On average, caregivers with higher baseline Zarit Burden Interview scores found the system to be more useful with their caregiving and were more satisfied with the system."

Matthew Lee Smith, PhD, professor of health behavior, Texas A&M University School of Public Health

He added that their satisfaction may stem from their perception that these technology-based solutions reduce the stressors associated with supervision vigilance and fear of wandering.

A large percentage of caregivers (70 percent) reported that their care recipient wore the wearable device daily. Caregivers reported less-frequent daily use of the smartphone location tracking, geo-fencing or two-way calling features (from 39 percent to 17.1 percent).

Smith said this suggests that caregivers benefited from knowing the person living with dementia was wearing the device, and that there were fewer daily needs for some system features.

"While more studies are needed, these findings are encouraging," Smith said. "They indicate that multi-component technological solutions can be adopted and could benefit both caregivers and persons living with dementia."