Title: Videos to Engage Patients and Families in Medical Decision-Making
Project Description: Patient engagement is critical to the management of chronic disease. But for patients with dementia, it is family caregivers who must be engaged to promote medical decisions consistent with patient preferences and to assure high quality medical care.
Short videos featuring real patients undergoing actual medical treatments have been shown to help patients make difficult decisions about their health care. This project will test the effectiveness of a group of interlinked videos, collectively forming a mini-MOOC (massive on-line open course) as a means of supporting family caregivers making choices on behalf of a relative with dementia.
The student will have the opportunity to work with a well-known geriatrician and palliative care physician who has written extensively about advance care planning and the frail elderly (Muriel Gillick) as well as her collaborator and pioneer in the development of video decision aids (Angelo Volandes) in all phases of this study: recruitment of subjects, implementation, and analysis.