A Personalized and Culturally Responsive Mindfulness Virtual Coach to Support Dementia Caregivers

Project Summary In 2022, an estimated 11 million American family caregivers provided 18 billion hours of unpaid care for individuals living with Alzheimer’s Disease and Related Dementias (AD/ADRD). These caregivers experience twice the emotional, physical, and financial problems and increased risk of depression and anxiety compared to non-AD/ADRD caregivers. As the number of people living with dementia is expected to double to 13.8 million by 2060, the strain on AD/ADRD family caregivers will be further intensified, especially for minoritized caregivers who are affected disproportionately and face cultural barriers in accessing support. Mindfulness-based interventions have been shown to improve depression, anxiety, and stress for AD/ADRD family caregivers. However, caregiver access, engagement, and adherence are challenging due to barriers such as time, cost ($50-400/session), lack of privacy in group sessions, and cultural stigma. Existing caregiver health and mindfulness apps have low adoption and poor usability, with passive video and audio recordings that are not interactive or personalized to each caregiver’s life and cultural context. There is a significant unmet need for easily accessible, personalized, and culturally responsive delivery of mindfulness interventions to support the needs of diverse AD/ADRD family caregivers. To address this urgent unmet need, we are developing Oasis: a personalized and culturally responsive mindfulness virtual coaching platform to reduce stress, depression, and anxiety for AD/ADRD caregivers. Unique from existing apps with pre-recorded content, Oasis leverages advances in artificial intelligence to adapt its mindfulness delivery to each caregiver’s real-time responses, caregiving and cultural context, and preferences. In each on-demand, 1:1 session, an avatar, tailored to the caregiver’s preferences (e.g., race/ethnicity, gender, accent/voice), is used to guide and support the caregiver through personalized mindfulness coaching. To increase engagement and adherence, Oasis’ NLP system personalizes the avatar’s dialogue based on key aspects of their caregiving experience and culture (e.g., challenging AD/ADRD behaviors, favorite foods for mindful eating activity, cultural values such as filial piety or familism). In Phase 1, our 12-month goals are to develop a prototype of Oasis and test its initial usability/feasibility for racially and ethnically diverse AD/ADRD family caregivers. By improving usability and personalizing intervention delivery to each caregiver’s life and cultural context, Oasis directly addresses barriers impeding mindfulness and health support for AD/ADRD caregivers to increase health equity by offering a personalized, culturally relevant, and accessible support system to this underserved population.