Steps to help Alzheimer’s caregivers

The findings are stunning: Offering simple training to people struggling to care for loved ones with Alzheimer’s disease not only eases their burden – it even can keep patients out of nursing homes for an extra 1 1/2 years.

But the exciting research also runs headlong into a grim reality.

Alzheimer’s caregivers seldom can make time in their daily grind to seek out that kind of help.

And when they do, they too often find waiting lists for services, or programs geared only toward people with advanced disease and not the larger pool in the purgatory that is dementia’s decade-long middle ground between independence and helplessness.

More than 5 million Americans are living with Alzheimer’s disease. It afflicts one in eight people 65 and older, and nearly one in two people over 85.

An estimated 10 million people share the task of caring for a relative or friend with dementia, the Alzheimer’s Association estimates. Nearly one in four provides care for 40 hours a week or more.

Handling the wandering, aggressive outbursts and incontinence – plus eventual round-the-clock monitoring – is very different than, for example, learning to lift someone who’s physically impaired but won’t fight the caregiver.

Those are skills that families must be taught, says Mary Mittelman of New York University’s School of Medicine, who is leading a new movement to develop customized training programs for Alzheimer’s care.

Some states are trying new ways to increase Alzheimer’s services. In Colorado, for example, officials experimented with giving $1,000 stipends to help families hire monitoring for their loved ones so they could attend a six-session training program called the Savvy Caregiver.