A new pilot program will give three hundred Missouri caregivers of Alzheimer’s and dementia patients a stipend for caring for the patients at home. Jerry Dowell, with the Missouri chapter of the Alzheimer’s Association, says the Legislature passed and the governor signed into law the 4.3-million dollar budget item this year. Caregivers will be trained and will receive oversight as well as a paycheck from a service provider.
Dowell says under the plan, caregivers would get a rate of 60-percent of what a nursing home would get. Missouri has about 120-thousand Alzheimer’s patients and that number continues to grow.