Partners at Meals - Respite Care and Home (PAM)

The focus of the intervention was to facilitate meals using knowledge of the person with dementia's past history and lifelong preferences as well as their stage of disease, altering the behavior of the caregiver at meals to ameliorate dysfunctional behaviors, and altering the environment to make it more focused on the process of meals. Families recorded three meals including behavior at home each month.

Enhanced Usual Condition (EUC) Staff and volunteers at the EUC sites received training in communication between family and friends of the person with dementia. Following the general model of the Savvy Caregiver (Hepburn), communication training will occur every six months in these two sites. Families will be trained by project staff to record three meals including behavior at home each month.