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Run a family meeting to coordinate care

A family meeting can turn a broad request for more help into a short list of care tasks, clear owners, and a date to check the plan again. It is a coordination tool, not a promise about what will happen next.

In an 18-month randomized multicenter trial of 192 dementia patient-caregiver pairs (96 intervention, 96 usual care), a program with caregiver preparation, four structured family counseling meetings, an evaluation meeting, and counselor access did not significantly delay nursing-home placement compared with usual care. The program used meetings to provide education, work through problems, mobilize family support, and review prior commitments.1

The same trial also measured the intervention's effect directly on the primary caregiver, tracking depressive and anxiety disorders, symptoms, burden, and quality of life over 12 months. It found no significant preventive effect on any of these: the family meetings did not lower the risk of a new depressive or anxiety disorder, did not reduce depressive or anxiety symptoms, and did not reduce caregiver burden or improve health-related quality of life. Seventy-two of the 192 caregivers developed a depressive or anxiety disorder within the year regardless of study group.2

Use a meeting to make and revise care commitments. Do not present it as a way to guarantee a delay in nursing-home placement, or as a way to protect the caregiver's own mental health — this trial found neither effect from the structured meeting format it tested.

  1. Joling KJ, van Marwijk HWJ, van der Horst HE, Scheltens P, van de Ven PM, Appels BA, et al. (2012). Effectiveness of Family Meetings for Family Caregivers on Delaying Time to Nursing Home Placement of Dementia Patients: A Randomized Trial. PLOS ONE, 7(8), e42145. Source → ↩

  2. Joling KJ, van Marwijk HWJ, Smit F, van der Horst HE, Scheltens P, van de Ven PM, Mittelman MS, van Hout HPJ. (2012). Does a Family Meetings Intervention Prevent Depression and Anxiety in Family Caregivers of Dementia Patients? A Randomized Trial. PLOS ONE, 7(1), e30936. Source → ↩