Advance Planning for Home Services for Seniors

Summary

The goal of this study is to develop and test an advance planning tool to help seniors understand projected health needs and plan ways to remain in their own homes when these crises occur. In this phase of the study through partnerships with seniors, senior community groups, area agencies on aging, and home care agencies the investigators are conducting a two-armed (attention control and intervention) randomized controlled trial.

Individuals will be randomly assigned to one of two interventions: attention control or the advance planning tool. The investigators attention control group will control for the possibility that regular contact with the study team may improve outcomes in participants randomized to the intervention website. Participants in the attention control arm will navigate an electronic educational session via a National Institute on Aging at NIH Web site about physical activity and exercise as it is a topic of interest to seniors. A minimum of 15 minutes and a maximum of 45 minutes will be allotted for navigating the Web site. The Web site is interactive and comparable to the intervention tool: http://go4life.nia.nih.gov/get-started).

If randomized to intervention, subjects will be introduced to the advance planning tool, the Plan Your Lifespan website, and given instructions on how to use it. Plan Your Lifespan is a Web-based planning tool that provides information for seniors related to advanced health planning for home services in specific content areas of: hospitalizations, falls, Alzheimer's, dementia, as well as communicating with others. The Plan Your Lifespan website is also interactive in that it allows participants to enter their information and share it with others to facilitate conversations and decision-making. Participants will navigate and complete the Web-based advance planning tool and will be allotted a minimum of 15 minutes and a maximum of 45 minutes to navigate the tool as part of the study.

All participants will be administered a pre- and post-test before and after viewing the website they were randomized to. All participants will be followed up at one and three months post via a brief phone call where follow-up questions will be asked of all participants.

Conditions

• Alzheimers, Falls, Aging in Place

Interventions

OTHER

Plan Your Lifespan Website

Participants in the intervention arm will navigate the advance planning tool, Plan Your Lifespan, a Web-based planning tool that provides information for seniors related to advanced health planning for home services in specific content areas of: hospitalizations, falls, Alzheimer's, dementia, as well as communicating with others. A minimum of 15 minutes and a maximum of 45 minutes will be allotted for navigating this website.The Plan Your Lifespan website is also interactive in that it allows participants to enter their information and share it with others to facilitate conversations and decision-making.

OTHER

Go4Life Website

Participants in the attention control arm will navigate an electronic educational session via a National Institute on Aging at NIH Website, Go4Life, a website about physical activity and exercise as it is a topic of interest to seniors. A minimum of 15 minutes and a maximum of 45 minutes will be allotted for navigating the website. The website is interactive and comparable to the intervention tool: http://go4life.nia.nih.gov/get-started).

Sponsors & Collaborators

• Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute

  collaborator OTHER

• Northwestern University

  lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

• Lee A Lindquist, MD, MPH, MBA · Northwestern University

Study Design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

OTHER

Masking

NONE

Model

PARALLEL

Eligibility

Min Age

65 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

Yes

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2014-09-30

Primary Completion

2015-12-31

Completion

2016-06-30

Countries

• United States

Study Locations