Feasibility Study of Caregiver-Provided Life Review: Implementation, Adaptation, and Effects on Care Recipients' Depressive Symptoms.

OBJECTIVES: This study aimed to examine the feasibility of unpaid, family/friend caregivers conducting life reviews with people with dementia in long-term care and community settings and reported on how we adapted the intervention modality under the COVID-19 pandemic. METHODS: Twenty-one caregiver-care recipient dyads completed 6 weekly life review sessions. The intervention format was modified to accommodate COVID-19 restrictions. Primary and secondary outcome measures were analyzed based on repeated measures at baseline and post-intervention. RESULTS: Due to the changing nature of the pandemic, we iterated the caregiver training intervention four times to accommodate caregivers' needs while having faced multiple recruitment challenges with care facility residents. Care recipients' depression appeared to have improved (p = .001). CONCLUSIONS: Although the COVID-19 pandemic created unique recruitment challenges, all the care recipients seemed to enjoy the life review activities supported by the positive outcomes in gaining socialization opportunities. It may be beneficial to offer a more self-paced intervention modality to ease the burden on caregivers. CLINICAL IMPLICATIONS: It appears that unpaid family/friend caregivers can provide life reviews to their loved ones with dementia. Training the caregivers on how to provide life reviews can be an easy, low-risk activity that might ameliorate depressive symptoms in the care recipients.

Teaching and Learning During and After COVID-19: Lessons Learned from the Social Work Classroom

Social work programs are preparing professionals to respond to natural disasters and global pandemics when they arise. However, literature on the learning experiences of students in the social work classroom with synchronous instruction during a natural disaster or global pandemic is limited, as is documentation of the experiences of social work faculty. Further, seldom discussed in the literature are the personal and emotional reflections of students and social work faculty. This paper provides the observations of two MSW students and their instructor within the context of the global pandemic of COVID-19 in order to more closely examine how this pandemic impacted their learning and teaching experiences in the classroom with synchronous instruction. Lessons learned from the authors’ experiences are outlined in an effort to identify key components for educators and social work programs to consider during and after a natural disaster or global pandemic.