IU researchers to study virtual support for dementia patients in statewide program
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A team of IU researchers wants to find out if virtual health care programs can effectively supplement care for dementia patients and provide support for those who take care of them.
The IU School of Medicine researchers, with a $686,000 grant from the National Institute on Aging IMPACT Collaboratory, will administer The Aging Brain Care Virtual Program — a first-of-its-kind effort to study remote dementia care across IU Health primary care clinics statewide.
If successful, Dr. Alexia Torke, the study’s co-principal investigator, said she hopes the program, and its goals of creating more accessibility to specialized expertise in dementia, can be replicated in health care systems across the country.
“I see it as kind of a silver lining that we had to quickly learn how to use telephone and video equipment,” Torke said of disruptions brought to the health care industry by the coronavirus pandemic. “That gives us the opportunity to reach people who might not be able to come in in a timely fashion or might live far away from a clinic where specialized services are provided.”
The team has worked through IU Health’s research review process and is working now with the Regenstrief Institute to identify patients who may be eligible to participate in the program. Researchers are looking for patients 65 years or older who are living with dementia.
They will work with 860 patients total—half belonging to a control group and the other half receiving regular phone calls or video checkups through the IU Health Virtual Hub.
“There’ll be some clinics that are participating in our program, and we’ll get the list of people who might qualify and give those folks a call and engage them in the video visits over the course of the next year, and then there will be other clinics where we’re really not delivering anything, we’re just looking at usual care,” Torke said.
Dr. Alexia Torke talks about the design of the Aging Brain Care Virtual Program.
Those selected to participate in the study will receive regular phone or video calls from a registered nurse. Torke says she expects those calls to come about once a month but could vary based on a patients’ needs.
During the virtual visits, nurses will communicate with a patient’s care provider and give support for both the patient and the person entrusted with care for them. For example, nurses may offer coaching to caregivers about how to handle the psychological changes brought by dementia.
The virtual visits also serve as an opportunity to check on a patients’ medications and assess changes in a patients’ health care needs to determine when a visit to the emergency room is necessary versus a visitor to the patient’s primary doctor.
“One of the goals of the project is that we would like to reduce the number of trips to the emergency room that the person with dementia has to make over the one-year period because those are so difficult and stressful,” Torke said.
Torke discusses her hopes for practical use of the research she and her colleagues are conducting.
The team plans to work with two dozen IU Health primary care clinics across the state and has put an emphasis on reaching both urban and rural communities where accessibility to in-person health care providers may be limited.
Researchers will extend the Aging Brain Care Virtual Program services to patients for a year and expect to complete the entirety of their project—including program enrollment, observation of services and analysis—within 18 months to two years.
“We think even with this monthly contact, we’ll really have the potential to improve these very expensive outcomes like trips to the emergency room, as well as improve the stress and the strain of the caregivers,” Torke said. “We think, from an economics perspective, this is a really good way to go.”
More information on the Aging Brain Care Virtual Program can be found by clicking here.