Patients, caregivers, and managing care.

Providing care to patients who have Alzheimer's disease requires that professional care providers have an understanding not only of the disease and its progression, but also of informal caregivers, their roles, capabilities, and needs. Using experience from the Medicare Alzheimer's Demonstration Project and subsequent work of the Legacy Health System in Portland, OR, this paper reviews the perspectives of case managers and caregivers regarding a variety of strategies that have been implemented.