Alzheimer's disease affects more than four million people and their families in the United States. The disease is incurable. Although 100,000 people die of dementia each year, only 2 percent of hospice patients nationally have a primary diagnosis of dementia.

Hospice of Michigan has cared for more than 1,500 patients with dementia over the past six year. Based on this experience, Hospice of Michigan hopes to improve care to people with dementia through The Palliative Excellence in Alzheimer's Care Effort (PEACE) a collaborative project with the University of Chicago.

Patients enrolled in this study receive hospice care from staff trained in caring for patients with dementia and their families. Services include advance care-planning, treatments for the disease and its complications, and treatments that improve patients' comfort.

The study has received the support of the Michigan Alzheimer's Association, and is funded, in part, by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. This project ended September 30, 2002. As a by-product of this study and HOM's work with dementia patients, Hospice of Michigan has produced the manual, "Caring for a Loved One with Advanced Dementia: a Caregiver's Manual."