ASSESSING READINESS IN A DYADIC CARE PLANNING INTERVENTION FOR EARLY DEMENTIA

Evidence supports designing proactive, dyadic interventions for use in the early stages leads to more effective decision making, and provides an opportunity to document and validate the person with dementia’s (PWD’s) care preferences. SHARE (Support, Health, Activities, Resources, and Education) a seven-session, counseling-based intervention aims to encourage and support care dyads to have important discussions about health care preferences that are often put off or avoided until the later stages of dementia. Although having these discussions early on are critical, many care dyads are not yet ready to have them. This paper will describe how SHARE Counselors are trained to assess care dyads’ readiness using an adapted, 4-stage version of the Transtheoretical Model (TTM). SHARE Counselors rated readiness of each care partner at baseline, after 6 sessions (8 weeks from baseline), and again after a final booster session (20 weeks from baseline). Findings from readiness assessments administered to 128 early-stage dementia care dyads will be used to illustrate: 1) how care partners who were less “ready” at baseline responded to discussions about future care, 2) strategies used by SHARE Counselors to engage care partners even when each started off at a different level of readiness, 3) how initial readiness levels at baseline impacted whether or not dyad completed the full intervention protocol, and 4) whether or not readiness improved over time as a result of the intervention. Discussion will highlight why understanding PWD and caregiver (CG) readiness is critical when engaging in sensitive discussions on future care needs.