Application

The CaRE Course is a curriculum to develop caregiving mastery of people living with dementias (PLWD) while understanding, acknowledging, and addressing the influence of race, culture, and disparities on caregivers’ mental health, medical, spiritual, and safety needs during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Key Benefits

• Augments caregiver's coping abilities and improves their well-being.
• Increase caregiver’s knowledge about ways to manage day-to-day life with a person living with dementia, knowledge about infection control practices to minimize risk of viral infection, and knowledge about navigating.
• Online asynchronous delivery method of the course can increase assistance to difficult to reach populations.

Market Summary

More than 5 million Americans over the age of 65 are living with some form of dementia. The COVID-19 pandemic has heightened the stress and increased the burden of African American caregivers, especially for family caregivers who care for persons living with dementia. Researchers at Emory University have developed CaREgiving While Black, a broadly accessible course to be provided online for African American family caregivers who care for persons living with dementia disorders like Alzheimer’s disease. The framework helps caregivers negotiate the Coronavirus pandemic, isolation, lack of community-based care alternatives, and long periods of unrelieved caregiving.

Technical Summary

The invention consists of a widely accessible course to be provided for African American family caregivers for persons living with neurogenerative diseases such as dementia and Alzheimer’s disease. The purpose of the course is to improve an African American caregiver’s skillset in four broad topic areas: ensuring safe care while managing intensified dementia-related care needs during the Covid-19 pandemic, manage the risks associated with both leaving and returning to an environment as well as allowing others to enter it, navigating the healthcare system while serving as a surrogate within for a dementia/Alzheimer’s disease patient, engaging in self-care behaviors that are often neglected by African American caregivers. These intervention activities have demonstrated a benefit in the capacities of African American caregivers to people living with dementia.