Weighing the Potential Intervention Against Real-world Limits

There is currently a large literature demonstrating that various family caregiver interventions are more effective than control conditions for improving caregiver depression and other outcomes. However, most of the interventions that have been studied are not routinely used in the community; some may not even be practical for community use.

Consequently, there has been an increasing emphasis in recent years on translational research and effectiveness research in which researchers recruit and train existing community practitioners to use evidence-based practices. These approaches have shown great promise (e.g., Burgio et al., 2009; Gitlin et al., 2010; Teri et al., 2005).

One conceptual framework that has gained prominence as a tool for moving evidence-based caregiving findings into the community is the RE-AIM approach. This model has been summarized in a recent publication (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Kimberly-Clark Corporation, 2008).

References

Burgio, L. D., Collins, I. B., Schmid, B., Wharton, T., McCallum, D., & Decoster, J. (2009). Translating the REACH caregiver intervention for use by area agency on aging personnel: The REACH OUT program. The Gerontologist, 49, 103–116.

Gitlin, L. N., Jacobs, M., & Earland, T. V. (2010). Translation of a dementia caregiver intervention for delivery in homecare as a reimbursable Medicare service: Outcomes and lessons learned. The Gerontologist, 43, 532-546.

Teri, L., McCurry, S. M., Logsdon, R., & Gibbons, L. E. (2005). Training community consultants to help family members improve dementia care: A randomized controlled trial. The Gerontologist, 45, 802–811.