Alzheimer’s Association Awards $4M to Improve Respite Care for People Living With Dementia

CHICAGO, Illinois—The Alzheimer’s Association Center for Dementia Respite Innovation (CDRI) announced that it is awarding more than $4 million in grants to 21 community-based service providers to increase the availability of quality dementia-specific respite care. The CDRI is administered through a partnership of the Alzheimer’s Association, University of Minnesota School of Public Health and USAging.

The 21 grant recipients are the first-year recipients of a five-year, $25 million grant program to enhance respite services for more than 11 million dementia caregivers nationwide. Respite care provides caregivers with a temporary rest from caregiving, while the person living with Alzheimer’s continues to receive person-centered care in a supportive environment. Respite care can be provided at home—by a friend, other family member, volunteer or paid service—or in a professional or community-based care setting, such as adult day care or a faith-based organization.

“There is an urgent need across the country for dementia-specific respite programs for people living with dementia and their caregivers,” said Sam Fazio, senior director of psychosocial research and quality care at the Alzheimer’s Association. “We received nearly 200 grant applications this year. These initial grants will help expand existing dementia-specific respite programs and create new ones to support dementia caregivers while ensuring the person living with dementia gets high-quality dementia care in a safe environment.”

The grant recipients span 17 states from Hawaii to New York and include efforts to expand existing respite programs and create new ones. Several of the service providers selected serve underserved communities—an important objective of the five-year program. See a complete list of this year’s grant recipients (PDF).  

In conjunction with the grant, the CDRI will also provide online training and ongoing technical assistance to the grant recipients focusing on improving person-centered care efforts to support program sustainability after the grant period and to ensure that respite services are dementia-capable, especially in diverse and underserved communities. The CDRI will also collect data and evaluate the impact of these innovative projects over the five years to inform public policy.

“Today’s announcement is just a first step to transforming respite care to better support people living with dementia and their caregivers in a dementia-capable, strengths-based and person-centered way in communities across the country,” said Fazio. “We intend to gain insights from each respite program we fund over the next five years, ultimately developing a catalog of programs, tools and resources that will be easily accessible to interested caregivers and care providers.”

According to the 2022 National Strategy to Support Family Caregivers (PDF), gaps in the availability of and access to respite can be significant, adding to the stress and burden of unpaid caregivers. Respite care is often costly, and with limited availability in many communities, caregivers are frequently left with responsibility for the bulk of the expenses. The CDRI grant and the sub-grants it will generate will result in developing and piloting cost-efficient, effective, strengths-based, person-centered, innovative models of dementia-specific respite care.

The Alzheimer’s Association created the CDRI earlier this year after receiving a $25 million grant from the Administration for Community Living (ACL), a division of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The ACL grant is the largest ever made to the Association. The CDRI marks the latest effort in the Alzheimer’s Association’s far-reaching strategy to improve care and support for people living with dementia and their families.

Funding disclosure

This project is supported by the Administration for Community Living (ACL), U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) as part of a financial assistance award totaling $32,962,453 with 75% funded by ACL/HHS and $8,333,333 amount with 25% funded by non-government source(s). The contents are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent the official views of, nor an endorsement, by ACL/HHS, or the U.S. Government.