Current Projects
The Frost Lab has recently been awarded competitive funding from the National Institute on Aging to launch several exciting projects. For each project, we are recruiting participants. If you are interested in participating in paid research, please reach out here to get started!
Preparedness for Caregiving
Now more than ever before, adults are stepping up to take care of family members, friends, and close others who are living with dementia. But many adults do not feel prepared for caregiving roles. Experienced caregivers, who have been caregivers before and are now caregiving for a second or third time, may need even more support to feel prepared to care after weathering the physical and emotional tolls of past caregiving roles. This project asks: who is more prepared for dementia-caregiving – those who have been caregivers before, or those who are caregiving for the first time? This project also examines how personal narratives from past caregiving roles can influence preparedness for current caregiving. We are recruiting over 400 caregivers to complete virtual study sessions.
Keeping on Course: A Decision-Making Program for People Living with Cognitive Impairment and Family
When someone is diagnosed with mild cognitive impairment, it casts a shadow of uncertainty on their life. What should I do differently now that I know I have cognitive impairment? What should I learn more about? How should I work with my family to make decisions for the future? The Frost Lab and colleagues have developed a new virtual program to help people living with cognitive impairment identify the decision opportunities that matter to them, have productive decision-making conversations with close family members, and build habits for good communication that will help the family navigate cognitive changes. We recently tested this program with two cohorts of six pairs of people living with cognitive impairment. We are working on improving and expanding this program to learn more about its impact.
The Way We Were: Relationship Narratives from Caregivers
When dementia develops, the relationship between a person living with dementia and their close family member shifts in major ways. In this project, we are examining more than 300 stories from caregivers of family members living with dementia, looking as how they narrate memories from before caregiving and memories from during caregiving. We believe that narrative patterns are linked to caregivers’ health, wellbeing, and maintenance of connections to the family members they are caring for.