CERDAR

The aim of this research project is to understand rural peoples’ knowledge of, and experience with, dementia and the social, cultural, and structural barriers that prevent access to dementia care and services. Living in a rural area plays an important role in how people with dementia are cared for and what their experiences are like. Learning more about this will help people with dementia, their caregivers, and their healthcare providers. We will be interviewing 100 rural residents, including healthy older adults, physicians and other health care providers, and formal and informal caregivers to people with dementia (PWD). We are interested in peoples’ views of healthy cognitive aging, as well as dementia, and the lived experience of caregivers and PWD.  Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, we will be conducting these interviews via telephone or ZOOM.  Once a COVID vaccine is developed and widely available, community-based researchers will also conduct in-person interviews with people with dementia.

Cardiovascular (heart) disease increases the risk for dementia-related illness.  CERDAR researchers are interested in working with older adults living in rural Minnesota who might be at risk for developing dementia, and who are willing to participate in a community-based exercise and virtual reality cognitive training program. Participants will be screened to make sure exercise is safe for them.  As part of this project, participants will have a stationary bike delivered to their home and will be supported and monitored remotely during 12 weeks of exercise.  They will also have their fitness and memory assessed at two different times.  The long-term objective of this project is to develop a rural dementia prevention program to reduce cardiovascular risk factors associated with the development of dementia-related illness.  

CareBand is a wearable wristwatch-like device for People Living with Dementia that helps caregivers to monitor the location and activity of their loved ones.  We are interested in further developing and adapting this device for use in rural areas.  We believe the CareBand technology will make it easier for rural people with dementia to age in their homes and avoid having to go to a care facility.  For more information on the device go to: www.carebandremembers.com. We will recruit 20 teams of people with dementia and their caregivers to participate in our study. The people living with dementia will be fitted with the CareBand and we will install small-signal devices in participants’ homes at no charge. The CareBand will allow the person caring for the participant and the researchers to track the movement and behaviors of the person living with dementia. The caregiver receives information on the movements of the person they are caring for on an App. We will then interview the participants and their caregivers to see how the wristband worked and what they liked and didn’t like about it, and whether the information the CareBand provides was helpful to them on a daily basis.

Until now, researchers have looked mostly at people living in cities when they develop programs and services to help people with dementia and their caregivers. We think it’s important to include rural and Tribal areas in these studies as well. The MK-MDT is collaborating with the Essentia Institute of Rural Health to analyze existing health record data to see what we can learn about how often dementia is diagnosed, and how widespread various types of dementia are in rural Minnesota compared to other rural and urban areas, and how people with dementia used services over time.