Both caregivers and patients benefit from formal training, counseling and support, a group of recent studies has found.

"Dementia caregivers have a lot of problems—such as a high level of stress, depression and anxiety—and are more prone to becoming physically ill themselves," says Richard Schulz, PhD, a professor of psychiatry and co-author of a study at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, where he is director of gerontology and director of the University Center for Social and Urban Research. His research team divided 642 dementia caregivers into two groups for six months. One was supported with nine in-home visits by professional staff, plus three 30-minute phone consultations and five by-telephone group sessions. The other group received only a packet of written educational material and two short phone calls.

Schulz's study, reported in the November 21, 2006, issue of the Annals of Internal Medicine, found the supported group demonstrated less stress and was better able to take care of both themselves and their patients. Moreover, only about 13 percent of the supported group suffered from clinical depression, as compared with about 23 percent of the group that didn't get the full-support program.

In that same issue of the Annals of Internal Medicine was a study from the University of California, Los Angeles. In the UCLA project, 238 patient/caregiver pairs were assigned to a case management group and 170 pairs were not. The assisted pairs got a year of personal support, as well as help in identifying local resources. Although caregivers did not report improvements in their own well-being, researchers noted that the patients were much better cared for than those in the unassisted group.

And a Dutch study found big benefits were derived from teaching dementia patients how to cope with their decline while teaching caregivers how to cope with their loved ones. After 10 sessions of training, 82 percent of the patients needed less help with day-to-day tasks, and about half the caregivers said they felt more competent.