The "Let's Talk Tech" Tool to Support Decision Making About Technology Use

NCT ID: NCT06817122

Last Updated: 2025-03-25

Basic Information

• Recruitment Status: RECRUITING
• Clinical Phase: NA
• Total Enrollment: 240 participants
• Study Classification: INTERVENTIONAL
• Study Start Date: 2025-02-07
• Study Completion Date: 2026-04-30

Brief Summary

The goal of this research is to educate people about different technologies to support care at home when someone is experiencing memory difficulties. "Let's Talk Tech" is a new tool to educate people about technologies commonly used to support care and monitor safety, and help families talk about their feelings about them to understand each other's perspectives. The goal of this clinical trial is to learn if "Let's Talk Tech" helps people feel more prepared to make decisions about technologies.

Researchers will compare Let's Talk Tech to usual care (no intervention) to see if Let's Talk Tech increases peoples' preparedness and confidence to make decisions about technologies.

Participants will:

• Use the Let's Talk Tech web application together with their study partner that takes up to an hour or do nothing.
• Complete three surveys. The second survey will be taken within 2 weeks of the first and the last survey will be taken 3 months after the first.

Detailed Description

The goal of this research is to help families understand digital health technology options to support dementia care at home so they can negotiate immediate decisions and future use in an informed way. This is a mechanism-focused trial of Let's Talk Tech (LTT), a single-use, self-administered intervention in the form of a web application. It targets education and interpersonal communication processes to enable informed decision making and planning for technology use that relieves care partners of the burden of making decisions without awareness of the person's preferences. Participants are people living with mild Alzheimer's disease (AD) and AD-related dementias (PLWD) or mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and a care partner. The 120 enrolled dyads (60 per study group) will be randomly assigned to receive either the intervention or usual care control. The intervention is self-administered. All participants will complete measures at baseline, at post-test (2 weeks) and 3 months later. Aim 1 will test if LTT compared with usual care improves the hypothesized mechanisms of change that are care partners' technology awareness, understanding, communication satisfaction, and intention to honor the PLWD/MCI's preferences, as well as both care partner- and PLWD/MCI-reported dyadic alignment. Aim 2 will examine if and how those hypothesized mechanisms of change improve the post-test and 3-month primary outcomes of care partner preparedness and decisional conflict, and secondary outcomes of PLWD/MCI and care partner sharing of technology preferences beyond the dyad and their confidence that PLWD/MCI's preferences will be honored. Exploratory Aim 3 will examine how, with whom, and for what purpose dyad members share technology preferences and explore factors that vary for those who shared with providers vs. family/friends, with the hope of learning how to expand the reach of this intervention to activate dyads' entire care networks.

Conditions

Dementia, Mild; Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI)

Study Design

• Allocation Method: RANDOMIZED
• Intervention Model: PARALLEL
• Primary Study Purpose: OTHER
• Blinding Strategy: NONE

Study Groups

Let's Talk Tech intervention

The intervention group will complete the single use self-administered Let's Talk Tech intervention together as a dyad.

Group Type: EXPERIMENTAL

Let's Talk Tech

Intervention Type: BEHAVIORAL

Let's Talk Tech is a self-administered dyadic education and communication tool delivered as a web application to support shared decision making about technology use.

Usual care

This control group will receive usual care, which means they will complete no intervention.

Group Type: NO_INTERVENTION

No interventions assigned to this group

Interventions

Let's Talk Tech

Let's Talk Tech is a self-administered dyadic education and communication tool delivered as a web application to support shared decision making about technology use.

Intervention Type: BEHAVIORAL

Eligibility Criteria

Inclusion Criteria

• have mild cognitive impairment (MCI) or mild dementia
• age 55 or older
• able to understand and speak English

• be identified by the patient as their primary support person
• age 18 or older
• able to understand and speak English
• able to complete LTT together with their study partner at the same time

Exclusion Criteria

• None

• Minimum Eligible Age: 18 Years
• Eligible Sex: ALL
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: No

Sponsors

National Institute on Aging (NIA)

NIH

Sponsor Role: collaborator

University of Washington

OTHER

Sponsor Role: lead

Responsible Party

Clara Berridge

Associate Professor: School of Social Work

Responsibility Role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR

Principal Investigators

Clara Berridge, PhD

Role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR

University of Washington

Locations

University of Washington

Seattle, Washington, United States

Site Status: RECRUITING

Countries

United States

Central Contacts

Clara Berridge, PhD

Role: CONTACT

clarawb@uw.edu

917-480-6050

Facility Contacts

Clara Berridge

Role: primary

clarawb@uw.edu

206-685-2180

Other Identifiers

1P30AG086562-01

Identifier Type: NIH

Identifier Source: secondary_id

View Link

STUDY00020570

Identifier Type: -

Identifier Source: org_study_id