Learning to PERSEVERE: Peer Mentor Support and Caregiver Education in Lewy Body Dementia

The investigators propose to adapt, improve, and implement a peer mentor support and caregiver education (PERSEVERE) program to improve LBD-specific caregiving mastery. Lewy body dementia (LBD) is the second most common dementia, comprising Parkinson's Disease (PD) dementia and Dementia with Lewy Bodies. LBD causes deterioration in multiple cognitive, motor, and neuropsychiatric domains, leading to heavy reliance on family caregivers. Patients with LBD are at a far greater risk of hospitalizations for falls, neuro-psychiatric symptoms, and infections, which are often preventable or treatable at home if recognized. Studies cite a crucial need for education and support of LBD caregivers, who face high rates of caregiver strain and adverse outcomes. Evidence from other chronic conditions supports peer mentoring as a potentially effective intervention to provide education and social support. PERSEVERE builds on our team's ongoing work of creating and testing a peer mentoring program for homebound PD patients' caregivers that has shown promising feasibility and acceptability. In the proposed project, the investigators will convene focus groups of former mentors and mentees, along with current caregivers, to provide formative information to shape the revised PERSEVERE curriculum that will include in-person mentor training and a comprehensive mentoring handbook. The curriculum will focus on key areas of LBD caregiving mastery, including: fall prevention, infections, neuropsychiatric symptoms (particularly hallucinations, delusions, anxiety, and depression), and advance directives. The investigators will enroll and train a new cohort of 36 LBD caregiver peer mentors who will be matched with 30 current LBD caregivers. Each pair will be instructed to speak on a weekly basis, using the 16-week structured curriculum as a framework. The study team will support the mentors with monthly conference calls and day-to-day availability for concerns. The investigators will assess the feasibility and fidelity of the intervention via online study diaries tracking the frequency, duration, and content of calls. During mentor training, the investigators will assess the change in mentors' caregiver mastery and LBD knowledge pre- and post-training. During the PERSEVERE intervention, the investigators will determine the change in mentees' caregiver mastery, LBD knowledge, and loneliness.