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ABSTRACT
Objectives
The goal of this study was to develop and evaluate an intervention aimed at increasing cognitive empathy, improving mental health, and reducing inflammation in dementia caregivers, and to examine the relevant neural and psychological mechanisms.
Methods
Twenty dementia caregivers completed an intervention that involved taking 3–5 daily photographs of their person living with dementia (PLWD) over a period of 10 days and captioning those photos with descriptive text capturing the inner voice of the PLWD. Both before and after the intervention, participants completed questionnaires, provided a blood sample for measures of inflammation, and completed a neuroimaging session to measure their neural response to viewing photographs of their PLWD and others.
Results
87% of enrolled caregivers completed the intervention. Caregivers experienced pre- to post-intervention increases in cognitive empathy (i.e. Perspective-Taking) and decreases in both burden and anxiety. These changes were paralleled by an increased neural response to photographs of their PLWD within brain regions implicated in cognitive empathy.
Conclusion
These findings warrant a larger replication study that includes a control condition and follows participants to establish the duration of the intervention effects.
Clinical Implications
Cognitive empathy interventions may improve caregiver mental health and are worthy of further investigation.
KEYWORDS:
Acknowledgments
This work was supported by the Emory Roybal Center for Dementia Caregiving Mastery [National Institutes of Health P30AG064200]; the Emory University Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center [National Institutes of Health P50AG025688]; and the Emory Center for Health in Aging.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Data availability statement
This study was not preregistered. Data are available at: https://osf.io/sweq2/?view_only=414d4010fa8d4f80b8610d32282f097e
Supplementary material
Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/07317115.2024.2317972.