Design and Development of a Community-Based, Interdisciplinary, Collaborative Dementia Care Program

Objective: To describe the design, development, and baseline characteristics of enrollees of a home-based, interdisciplinary, dyadic, pilot dementia care program.

Design: Single-arm, dementia care intervention in partnership with primary care providers delivered by Health Coaches to persons with dementia and caregiver "dyads" and supervised by an interdisciplinary team.

Setting: Home- and virtual-based dyad support.

Participants: Persons with mild cognitive impairment or dementia diagnosis and/or who were prescribed antidementia medications; had an identified caregiver willing to participate; were under the care of a partner primary care provider; and had health insurance through the affiliated accountable care organization (Banner Health Network).

Intervention: Provision of personalized dementia education and support in the home or virtually by Health Coaches supported by an interdisciplinary team.

Measurements: Cognition, function, mood, and behavior of persons with dementia; caregiver stress and program satisfaction; primary care provider satisfaction.

Results: Served dyads from three primary care clinics with a total of 87 dyads enrolled between December 2018 and June 2020.

Conclusion: A pilot Dementia Care Partners demonstrated feasibility and suggested acceptability, and high satisfaction among primary care providers and caregivers.