Cheung, Hiu Laam and Grant, Rachel and Miller, Sara and Yi, Susan (2020) Calming for caregivers: effectiveness of aromatherapy, mindfulness meditation, visual stimulation, and music therapy on self-perceived levels of stress for caregivers of people with dementia. Masters thesis, Stanbridge University.
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Abstract
Evidence indicates a lack of occupational therapy strategies and resources to provide supportive services for caregivers to benefit individuals with dementia and their caregivers. 18% of caregivers for people with dementia (CPWD), compared to 6% of caregivers of people without dementia, show an increase in stress or burden when caregiving (Alzheimer’s Association, 2015). Nearly 60% of Alzheimer’s and dementia caregivers rate the emotional stress of caregiving as high or very high (Alzheimer's Impact Movement, 2019). The purpose of this project was to develop a readily accessible and interactive website for CPWD that contains informative evidence-based interventions found to effectively calm and reduce stress and also aim at increasing the confidence of CPWD. The framework used for this project was the Ecology of Human Performance (EHP) model which addresses the person, task, and environment, and these three components were incorporated throughout the project. This study was designed to create and implement a web-based resource containing four sections of different calming strategy interventions: aromatherapy, mindfulness meditation, visual stimulation, and music therapy. All interventions selected had evidence to support their efficacy for calming behaviors. We collaborated with Alzheimer’s Orange County to disseminate the web-based resource to recruit participants via email. Pre- and post-test surveys were collected for data analysis. Frequency and percentage analysis revealed participants reported feeling less stressed and had a better understanding of different calming strategies after browsing the website. Implications for occupational therapy include practical application of the four calming strategies as interventions to be used in clinical practice, as well as opportunities for education to reduce perceived levels of caregiver stress by method of a web-based resource. Future research should expand on investigating different data collection methods to yield more results for a comprehensive representation of the caregiver community. Due to working with an organization, caregivers might underreport due to the perceived risk of results being revealed to their organization. Furthermore, the web-based resource could also be beneficially utilized with different caregiver populations such as those with Parkinson’s disease and patients who have experienced strokes. Conclusively, the use of a web-based resource for CPWD can be beneficial for reducing perceived levels of stress and integrating novel calming strategies into daily life.
| Item Type: | Thesis (Masters) |
|---|---|
| Subjects: | R Medicine > RC Internal medicine |
| Depositing User: | Institutional Administrator |
| Date Deposited: | 19 Jan 2022 00:01 |
| Last Modified: | 02 May 2024 21:43 |
| URI: | http://repository.stanbridge.edu/id/eprint/63 |
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