Educational intervention for a Huntington's disease caregiver

A lack of knowledge has been linked to increased stress for caregivers. Educational programs are an inexpensive intervention with potential to improve caregivers' provision of care and to reduce the associated stress. The present description is of a Huntington's disease caregiver's participation in a training program for at-home care of a physically dependent, demented person. Care knowledge was deficient prior to participation and increased with participation. Collaterally, confidence in providing assistance increased and stressfulness of care fell. While increased knowledge remained at follow-up, confidence and stressfulness returned to pre-intervention levels. Measures of affect mirrored the pattern of change in confidence and stressfulness. This suggests that education increased knowledge but this gain was not associated with longer term improvement in the caregiver's affect, stressfulness of continuing to provide care, and confidence in providing care. Implications for such programs are discussed.