# Adaptation of PATH-Pain for Dementia Family Caregivers Living with Persistent Pain and Negative Emotions

> **NIH NIH K99** · WEILL MEDICAL COLL OF CORNELL UNIV · 2024 · $127,440

## Abstract

PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT
Dementia family caregivers frequently experience persistent musculoskeletal pain. Pain is often made worse
by performing caregiving tasks, impairing dementia family caregivers’ ability to provide care. Dementia family
caregivers’ who have pain often have co-existing emotional and psychological health challenges, such as high
negative emotions and/or comorbid depression, which makes managing their pain and their caregiving tasks
more difficult. The objective of this K99/R00 proposal is to develop Dr. Shelbie Turner’s capacity to conduct
translational research to support dementia family caregivers’ health and well-being through improved
management of their own persistent pain. Dr. Turner will work towards five training objectives in the K99 phase
of the project. Doing so will allow her to develop and transition to an independent investigator who designs,
adapts, evaluates, and disseminates innovative, evidence-based interventions to prevent or mitigate dementia
family caregivers’ negative health outcomes, with a focus on the problem of persistent pain and associated
symptoms (e.g., negative emotions) and comorbidities (e.g., depression). First, she will add to and extend her
knowledge in core substantive areas to include pain, negative emotions, dementia caregiving, and health
behavior change. Second, she will improve her ability to develop, implement, and disseminate behavioral
interventions with an emphasis on both pain management interventions and caregiver interventions. Third, she
will gain experience needed to design and conduct clinical trials, including conventional, pragmatic, and
adaptive clinical trials with dementia family caregivers. Finally, she will pursue professional development
opportunities in grant writing (fourth training objective) and leadership and collaboration (fifth training
objective). The three research aims of this application will progress as follows. Aim 1 adapts an evidence-
based pain self-management intervention, Problem Adaptation Therapy for Pain in Primary Care (PATH-Pain),
for use by dementia family caregivers with persistent pain. Aim 2 tests the usability of the adapted intervention
with dementia family caregivers, and Aim 3 examines the feasibility, acceptability, and preliminary efficacy of
the intervention through a pilot randomized controlled trial. The adapted intervention will be the first evidence-
based pain self-management program customized specifically for dementia family caregivers. The proposed
project is consistent with NIA’s mission to conduct behavioral research on aging and foster the development of
research scientists in aging. It is aligned with NIA’s special interests in dementia caregiver intervention
research and pain management research. Dr. Turner proposes to pursue her developmental goals and begin
the proposed research with the support of the Division of Geriatrics and Palliative Medicine at Weill Cornell
Medical College of Cornell University, which provides...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10865920
- **Project number:** 1K99AG086523-01
- **Recipient organization:** WEILL MEDICAL COLL OF CORNELL UNIV
- **Principal Investigator:** Shelbie G Turner
- **Activity code:** K99 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2024
- **Award amount:** $127,440
- **Award type:** 1
- **Project period:** 2024-08-01 → 2026-07-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10865920

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10865920, Adaptation of PATH-Pain for Dementia Family Caregivers Living with Persistent Pain and Negative Emotions (1K99AG086523-01). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-24 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10865920. Licensed CC0.

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