A Systematic Review of Intervention Trials Utilizing Biomarkers Among Informal Caregivers of People with Alzheimer's Disease & Related Dementias

Abstract

Informal caregivers of people with Alzheimer's Disease and Related Dementias (ADRD) experience unique stressors, reduced quality of life, and report poorer health, compared to non-caregivers. Throughout the last thirty years, researchers have developed and tested various psychosocial interventions and their ability to improve caregiver health. Due to an exclusive focus on self-report methods, however, no existing systematic literature reviews specifically examine intervention studies employing biomarkers; this systematic review aims to address this gap in the literature. In each database (PubMed and Web of Science, respectively), a title search was conducted with the following keywords: "alzheimer*" OR "dementia" AND "caregiv*" AND "intervention", followed by a second search using identical keywords except "intervention" was replaced with "program." Study or intervention protocol articles, exclusively qualitative studies, cultural applicability papers, dissemination studies, descriptive articles or program reports, acceptability/feasibility studies, studies utilizing formal caregiving samples, commentaries, review papers, and meta-analyses, erratums/corrections, measure development articles, factor analyses, and case reports were excluded from the final pool of studies. In this systematic review, the findings of 14 studies are summarized, and are organized based on specific types of biomarkers: neuroendocrine, immune, and autonomic physiological. Overall, the review yielded mixed results, which may, in part, be due to differences in the types of interventions tested, as well as differing biomarker measurement, methodology, and analysis. More biobehavioral intervention trials are needed among ADRD caregivers. Including biological parameters as pre- and post-measures can shed insight into the extent to which interventions may help caregivers heal from the stress of caregiving.