Journal article
Mentalizing imagery therapy to augment skills training for dementia caregivers: Protocol for a randomized, controlled trial of a mobile application and digital phenotyping
Contemporary clinical trials, v 116, 106737
May 2022
PMID: 35331943
Featured in Collection : UN Sustainable Development Goals @ Drexel
Abstract
More than 50 million people worldwide live with a dementia, and most are cared for by family members. Family caregivers often experience chronic stress and insomnia, resulting in decreased mental and physical health. Accessibility of in-person stress reduction therapy is limited due to caregiver time constraints and distance from therapy sites. Mentalizing imagery therapy (MIT) provides mindfulness and guided imagery tools to reduce stress, promote self and other understanding, and increase feelings of interconnectedness. Combining MIT with caregiver skills training might enable caregivers to both reduce stress and better utilize newly learned caregiving skills, but this has never been studied. Delivering MIT through a smartphone application (App) has the potential to overcome difficulties with scalability and dissemination and offers caregivers an easy-to-use format. Harnessing passive smartphone data provides an important opportunity to study behavioral changes continuously and with higher granularity than routine clinical assessments. This protocol describes a randomized, controlled, superiority trial in which 120 family dementia caregivers, aged 60 years or older, will be assigned to smartphone App delivery of caregiver skills with MIT (experimental condition) or without MIT (control condition). The primary objectives of the trial are to assess whether the experimental condition is superior to control on reducing family caregiver stress, insomnia and related outcomes and to demonstrate the feasibility of developing behavioral markers from passive smartphone data that predict health outcomes in older adults. Trial outcomes may inform the suitability of our intervention for caregivers and provide new methods for assessment of older adults.
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Details
- Title
- Mentalizing imagery therapy to augment skills training for dementia caregivers: Protocol for a randomized, controlled trial of a mobile application and digital phenotyping
- Creators
- Felipe A. Jain - Massachusetts General HospitalOlivia Okereke - Massachusetts General HospitalLaura Gitlin - Drexel UniversityPaola Pedrelli - Massachusetts General HospitalJukka-Pekka Onnela - Harvard UniversityMaren Nyer - Massachusetts General HospitalLiliana A. Ramirez Gomez - Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USAMichael Pittman - Massachusetts General HospitalAbu Sikder - Children's Hospital of Los AngelesD.J. Ursal - Ellora Systems, Boston, MA, USADavid Mischoulon - Massachusetts General Hospital
- Publication Details
- Contemporary clinical trials, v 116, 106737
- Publisher
- Elsevier
- Resource Type
- Journal article
- Language
- English
- Academic Unit
- College of Nursing and Health Professions
- Web of Science ID
- WOS:000807502200011
- Scopus ID
- 2-s2.0-85126992657
- Other Identifier
- 991019168072604721
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- Collaboration types
- Domestic collaboration
- Web of Science research areas
- Medicine, Research & Experimental
- Pharmacology & Pharmacy