CarePRO Goals

CarePRO Virtual draws on cognitive behavioral intervention strategies and techniques to help reduce negative and increase positive mood states. For example, CarePRO teaches caregivers relaxation skills, assertive communication to improve interactions with providers and others in their social networks, daily pleasant-event scheduling to bolster mood and activity, ways for caregivers to appraise their loved one’s behavior more realistically and intervene more appropriately, and strategies to change how caregivers think about their caregiving situations.

CarePRO Virtual goals include the following:

Increase participants’ understanding that how caregivers think about caregiving (and about their relatives or friends with dementia) strongly affects how they themselves feel and how they respond to their own caregiving situations

Increase their understanding that what caregivers do also strongly affects how they feel and respond

Teach a variety of specific skills to help caregivers change unhelpful thoughts and behaviors to help them better manage caregiving stress and other types of upset

Learn ways to help manage and cope with challenging behaviors that their loved ones exhibit due to their dementia (e.g., repeating the same question over and over, wandering, or shadowing)
Improve communication skills to help caregivers interact more effectively with others, including their loved ones with dementia as well as health care and social service providers, family, and friends

Create a supportive environment that fosters skill acquisition in a group workshop setting via Zoom

Foster translation of workshop skills into participants’ daily lives through individual coach calls tailored to meet their own caregiving situations

Improve the caregivers’ well-being and quality of life through acquisition and translation of these workshop skills into their own caregiving situations