Regenstrief Institute, Inc.

This is a pilot study of scheduled video/audio conferences by clinical navigators on the experience of surrogate decision makers for hospitalized older adults with Alzheimer's disease (AD), delirium, and other causes of cognitive impairment. The purpose of this study is to learn more about the experiences of surrogate decision makers of hospitalized older adults when they cannot be physically present with the patient in the hospital. We will conduct a randomized pilot study of virtual visits to connect the surrogate decision makers of incapacitated, hospitalized older adults with AD, delirium, and related causes of cognitive impairment with the patient and clinicians.

The overarching goal of our work is to test the effect of high-quality spiritual care for ICU family surrogates on outcomes of psychological and spiritual well-being and medical decision making. Our team has developed an approach to high quality spiritual care intervention for ICU surrogates, called the Spiritual Care Assessment and Intervention (SCAI) framework, which is delivered by a chaplain interventionist to ICU surrogates.

This study seeks to evaluate the utility and efficacy of the Non-Contact Sleep Quality Monitor System when used to monitor the sleep quality of individuals living in long-term care (LTC) with either Alzheimer's Disease (AD) or Alzheimer's Disease Related Dementia (ADRD). This before-after comparison trial will be conducted in several LTC facilities to evaluate the effect access to System Sleep Quality Data has on documentation of sleep disorders or treatments and sleep quality change over time for AD/ADRD participants in the intervention group as compared to the control group.
All subjects will undergo sleep quality monitoring for 4-weeks. At the end of the first 2-weeks, research staff and LTC facility staff and medical providers will receive access to sleep monitoring data. We hypothesize that when real-time System Sleep Data is shared with LTC staff or healthcare providers, that sleep disturbances will be more readily detected, leading to timelier, better tailored treatment interventions for sleep disturbances, thereby improving sleep quality and decreasing daytime physical inactivity.