Posted on July 1, 2025 by Amanda Cerreto
Associate Dean for Community Engagement and Partnerships and Professor of Public Health Rhonda BeLue has received an NIH grant to improve care interactions for patients with Alzheimer’s disease.
The $30,000 award is part of a larger four-year, $1.2M NIH grant led by Dr. Anju Paudel at Pennsylvania State University. The broader project focuses on the early detection of Alzheimer’s disease, with BeLue’s portion dedicated to enhancing patient-caregiver interactions.
BeLue has spent nearly a decade working with teams of nurses on strategies to improve care for individuals living with Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias (ADRD). Her first funded project was a five-year, hospital-based study centered on interventions that support families of Alzheimer’s patients.
This new two-year expands that scope to include the entire caregiver network: families, nurses, doctors and any caregiver that patients may encounter. BeLue’s aim is to evaluate the feasibility, acceptability and cultural responsiveness of the Promoting Positive Care Interactions (PPCI) intervention. The PPCI is a non-pharmacological approach designed to foster positive care interactions between staff and residents with ADRD in assisted living facilities.
As the co-PI, BeLue is responsible for assessing the cultural responsiveness of the PPCI among staff and facility leadership, training staff to administer questionnaires and moderate focus groups and overseeing data analysis and interpretation.
“This study is tailored to each individual setting,” BeLue explained. “We will set facility-specific goals and environmental assessments. Assisted living facilities and long-term care facilities are staffed differently, and will have different goals.”
BeLue and her team will work with each facility to set goals such as policy and environment changes, staff education and more. However, the study’s reach goes beyond formal institutions.
“Caregiver is a broad term,” BeLue said. “It can be a family member who is negotiating care during hospitalization. It can be nurses as part of a care team, or dining staff or activities coordinators in a long-term facility.”
Ultimately, BeLue hopes not only to improve the experience for patients, but also to reduce stress for those who care for them.
By working across care settings and centering the needs of both patients and caregivers, the study aims to make a meaningful difference in everyday interactions, where so much of care really happens.
— Amanda Cerreto
