Behavioral gerontology at home: Retaining self-care skills in an older adult with major neurocognitive disorder through stimulus control and subtle prompt hierarchies from spousal caregiver.

Major neurocognitive disorder (MND), also known as dementia, affects approximately 85,000 older people in the United Kingdom. Most people with MND are cared for at home, requiring over 700,000 informal caregivers, many of whom are spouse carers. The present study examined a spousal caregiver intervention to maintain personal hygiene-related life skills (i.e., showering) in Flo, a 79-year-old woman with Alzheimer’s disease. The simplified multiple-component intervention, including reducing distracting discriminative stimuli in the bathroom and a subtle prompting procedure, was used successfully. Rick, the participant’s husband, reported high levels of social validity, noting reduced stress and improved well-being. Results are discussed in terms of the importance of behavioral strategies for enhancing personal care at home, demonstrating the use of individually tailored, low-effort interventions to support caregivers, and enhance the quality of life for individuals with MND.