Mind matters: How a dose of positive psychology helps dementia caregivers get through the day

Called by some as the “dementia tsunami,” the number of persons with dementia in the world is going to double in the next 20 years. The great majority of those will be cared for in the community by family members who have to provide round-the-clock care and are at elevated risk for early mortality and physical and mental disorders. Additionally, care-givers experience positive gains (a.k.a. benefits) from the hardship, such as enhanced patience and mastery, a closer bonding with the care-recipient, a sense of gratification, and finding positive meanings. I have developed a conceptual model of positive gains and use it to guide the design of two randomized controlled trials for dementia caregivers. In this talk, I will describe key elements of the benefit-finding intervention and the design of the clinical trial, and report data on the long-term effectiveness of the intervention in Hong Kong Alzheimer caregivers.