Can phoning home ease caregiver burden? Stanford study dials up answers

STANFORD, Calif. – Tending to relatives with long-term medical problems can be so demanding and stressful that caregivers neglect their own health, draining their stamina until they can no longer care for ill family members. Often in these cases, the only remaining option is expensive: institutional care.

Researchers at the Stanford Prevention Research Center are looking for alternatives through a study that will examine whether telephone-based counseling on exercise, nutrition and stress relief can help caregivers maintain their own health and prolong their ability to provide care.

An estimated 5 million Americans care for an ill, older family member, making the well-being of caregivers a vital economic and public-health issue, said Cynthia Castro, PhD, research associate at the center and coordinator of the study. She noted that among relatives who care for dementia patients, declines in the caregiver’s health is the primary reason for eventually placing the patient in a nursing home. “The costs of institutionalizing someone are staggering,” she said. “These caregivers are a huge source of economic relief for this country.”

Castro and her colleagues want to find out if caregivers benefit from counseling on healthy habits. For the study, known as Teaching Healthy Lifestyles to Caregivers, or TLC2, they hope to recruit 240 older caregivers in the Bay Area over the next two years to test the effectiveness of delivering different types of health counseling over the phone.

“There are support services available in a more traditional classroom or group format, but given the demands and time constraints that caregivers face we wanted to explore other delivery methods that are convenient and flexible,” Castro said. “And since our counseling is done on a one-on-one basis, the telephone really lends itself to this approach.”

Eligible participants will be randomly assigned to a one-year, telephone-based counseling program in either stress management or exercise and nutrition.

For the study, researchers are recruiting men and women over the age of 50 who spend a minimum of 20 hours per week in their own home caring for a friend or family member with a long-term illness or medical condition. The caregivers must speak English, have a diet too high in fat and low in vegetables, not be engaged in regular physical activity, be in general good health, live within commuting distance of Stanford and be willing to receive telephone-based support.

To learn more about possible participation in the study, call (650) 723-9530, and select option 3. Information is also available on the Web at http://healthyaging.stanford.edu. The study is funded by the National Institute on Aging.