 Background: Caregiving can severely limit caregivers lives. In order to keep their family member at home, dementia caregivers often experience physical and psychological strain, social isolation, loss of time for self, and inability to obtain andor afford assistance with caregiving tasks. The amount of time spent in providing care for a family member with dementia contributes to these problems. Dementia caregivers report spending around 18 hours per day in caregiving tasks and 3 hours per day in supervision. The high levels of stress involved in caring for a dementia patient and the widespread lack of training in such care can lead to a vicious cycle of ever-increasing health care dependency, first for the patient and secondly for informal caregivers. Telephone Support Groups have the potential to address caregivers stress, isolation and education about dementia and its management, leading to sustainable informal caregiving and lower healthcare use and overall VHA expenditures for the veteran patient with dementia. 