Development of a Caregiver Education Support Tool for Family Caregivers of Older Adults with Dementia

For every person diagnosed with dementia, four family members are affected and burdened with providing care. Providing familial care is associated with greater psychological, social, and emotional burden on the caregiver. Caregivers are not provided with adequate education to support successful caregiving and aging in place. This capstone project developed and piloted a caregiver education support tool to simplify the process of finding caregiver education. Five caregivers participated in interviews to guide the development of the support tool, next completed the Likert questionnaire, and tested the caregiver education support tool. Four themes were identified: (1) burden, (2) loss, (3) unmet caregiver education needs, and (4) pendulum of emotions. Qualitative themes were then compared with the Likert questionnaire. This capstone project aimed to simplify identifying appropriate caregiver education and decrease caregiver burden.