Design of Occupational Therapy Interventions for Middle-Aged and Elderly Family Caregivers

Area of Science:

• Gerontology
• Occupational Therapy
• Psychology

Background:

• Family caregivers often experience significant psychological distress.
• Middle-aged and elderly caregivers require accessible support interventions.
• Life review and narrative therapy offer potential benefits for psychological well-being.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop an interactive app integrating life review and narrative therapy for family caregivers.
• To evaluate the app's effectiveness in improving caregivers' mood and quality of life.
• To gather user feedback for future app development.

Main Methods:

• Development of an interactive occupational therapy app.
• Integration of life review and narrative therapy principles.
• Usability and learnability testing of the app interface.
• Evaluation of intervention impact on mood and quality of life.

Main Results:

• The intervention significantly improved participants' mood.
• Quality of life improvements were less pronounced due to its multifaceted nature.
• The app demonstrated good operating characteristics, learnability, and usability.
• Participants' psychological aspects showed positive improvement.

Conclusions:

• The interactive app positively impacted caregivers' psychological well-being.
• Suggestions for future development include contextual life review, intelligent guiding questions, scenario simulation, and creative collaboration.
• The app serves as a valuable tool for occupational therapy interventions for caregivers.