HHS has announced $6.78 million to develop innovative approaches to provide care for people with Alzheimer’s disease and support for their family caregivers.
The Alzheimer’s Disease Demonstration Grants to States (ADDGS) Program works to improve the responsiveness of home and community-based services to persons with dementia and their caregivers.
“The pain of losing a loved one to Alzheimer’s disease is too often compounded by not being able to care of them,” Secretary Thompson said. “This funding will give thousands of families the opportunity to provide the support, compassion, and love that only a family member could.”
The awards will support one-year capacity building demonstration programs in two new states: South Dakota and Wyoming. The awards will further support three-year systems change demonstration programs in 22 states/territories: Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Florida, Indiana, Iowa, Louisiana, Maine, Minnesota, Missouri, Nevada, New Mexico, North Carolina, North Dakota, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Vermont, Virginia, and Wisconsin.
The program is administered by HHS’ Administration on Aging (AoA). It focuses on serving hard-to-reach and underserved people with Alzheimer’s disease or related disorders.
With this fiscal year’s grant awards, the AoA significantly strengthened the ADDGS program by incorporating the following new design elements:
- A greater focus on using the ADDGS program as a vehicle for advancing changes to a state’s overall system of home and community based care, including requirements that three-year project activities be linked to other state system change efforts, including state programs to streamline consumer access to services and family caregiver support programs.
- A requirement that all applicants, in the formulation of their project proposals, review and use findings from research on service models and techniques for supporting persons with Alzheimer’s disease and their family caregivers, including findings from research supported by the National Institute on Aging.
New ADDGS grants were awarded to: