Postponing the Nursing Home for Alzheimer Patients

The diagnosis of Alzheimer’s is a severe blow to the patient and his or her caregiver, whether it’s a spouse, daughter, or son. Everyone knows that the prognosis is steady decline, ending, most likely, in nursing home admission. Is there any way to postpone the inevitable? Apparently, yes.

A long-term study at New York University has examined the benefits of a psychosocial support program. The results, published in the journal Neurology, show that enhanced counseling and support compared to ‘usual care’, was linked with a delay in nursing home admission of 1½ years.

A volunteer sample of 406 spouse caregivers enrolled in the study. They had six sessions of individual and family counseling, support group participation, and available ad hoc telephone counseling, or ‘usual care’, according to random allocation. The patients whose spouses received the counseling intervention had a 28% reduction in the rate of nursing home placement compared to those with ‘usual care’ caregivers. This amounted to a 557-day difference, or 1½ years.

One must remember the strain placed on caregivers of Alzheimer patients. Giving them an extra 18 months of caregiving may help them emotionally, but many of the stresses will continue unabated. The need for support from friends and family will continue during this extra time that they, and the patient, have been given. Nevertheless, it appears that the counseling intervention is a worth-while approach.