Kalina Mikolajczak-Degrauwe
Tim van den Broeke
Ingrid Snijders
Mareike Millner
Summary
The overall goal of the Odense house project is to diminish the burden of informal carers of people living with dementia (PLWD) through professional and structural support of the informal carers and the use of tailor-made technological solutions. The project aims to strengthen the resilience and perseverance of the informal carers so that PLWD can stay at home longer. Within the project, the informal carer is an acknowledged main actor of effective and integrated service to PLWD.
The Odense house is continuously tailored to the needs of PLWD and their informal carers. To facilitate the adjustment to needs, the Odense house Mechelen used a combination of research, co-creation and iteration to develop a service centre adapted to the needs of PLWD and their informal carers.
Overall, five criteria need to be matched to implement the Odense house concept within your own organization. These five criteria can be found in figure 3. A program that consolidates and structures early information, support and recreation is needed to support informal carers. The report showcases a few examples of activities that different partners used to provide information and recreation to support informal carers. Examples of recreation activities included wood crafting sessions, singing together and a was & bronze workshop. Examples of activities for providing information and support were discussion groups for informal carers on a specific topic or family group sessions.
Besides organising physical meetings, the project also created a digital platform. The MeMo by Monument website consolidates information on dementia-friendly services and enhances exchange with peers. It has five main building blocks.
1. Information, including articles, books, videos etc.
2. Tips & Advice; including blogposts by and for informal carers
3. Technology; including blogposts about useful technology
4. Events & places; search for nearby events and interesting places for PLWD
5. Monument project; dissemination of information regarding the Monument project
In order to strengthen the resilience and perseverance of informal carers, the project also used existing assistive technology accessible in an experimental manner by enabling timely introduction and adaptation to the needs of the informal carers. For this process, we’ve used the steps that can be found in figure 21.
The Odense house partners tested co-creating remote monitoring technologies in an operational environment adjusted to the specific needs of the informal carer. The timeline and iterations for this process can be found in figure 23.