Resources for Enhancing Alzheimer's Caregiver Health (REACH): Overview, Site-Specific Outcomes, and Future Directions

Abstract

Established in 1995, Resources for Enhancing Alzheimer’s Caregiver Health (REACH) is a unique, multisite research program sponsored by the National Institute on Aging and the National Institute on Nursing Research. The primary purpose of REACH is to carry out social and behavioral research on interventions designed to enhance family caregiving for Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and related disorders. Specifically, REACH has two goals: to test the effectiveness of multiple different interventions and to evaluate the pooled effect of REACH interventions overall. REACH developed from a National Institutes of Health initiative that acknowledged the well-documented burdens associated with family caregiving as well as the existence of promising family caregiver interventions reported in the literature.