SUccessful Caregiver Communication and Everyday Situation Support in dementia care
Dementia is a fast growing chronic disease that affects the behaviour and communication abilities of people living with this neurological disorder. Caregivers of persons with dementia are often challenged by this fact, which could lead to stress, feelings of helplessness, aggressive situations and caregiver burnout. Coordinated by the AIT Austrian Institute of Technology, organizations from Austria, Cyprus, Romania, Norway and Canada cooperate in this project in order to develop a smartphone app for caregivers of people with dementia. The SUCCESS solution provides them with innovative training sessions and avatar-based role-plays. The aim is to raise awareness and understanding on the changing behaviours of the person with dementia and to learn effective communication and interaction strategies. Thus, caregivers are able to receive help and advice in special situations related to their care responsibility. Besides providing knowledge and training, SUCCESS supports caregivers to handle emotionally challenging situations and own negative feelings. Balancing the care activities with the caregiver’s own needs is addressed as an important preventive measure. A user-centred design approach ensures that the final solution that is in line with the caregiver’s needs and that the provided content can be implemented in caregivers’ everyday care activities.
In addition to the overall coordination of the project, the Center for Technology Experience is responsible for all user studied, and therefore ensures an implementation of a UCD approach in all phases of the project: ethnographic studies, expert workshops, lab and field user studies.
Key Words: dementia care, communication and interaction support, emotional caregiver support, role-play training
Start: 03/2017
Duration: 36 months
Funding Organisation: Active and Assisted Living Joint Programm (AAL JP)
Website: www.success-aal.eu
AIT-Contact: Markus Garschall
This project was funded by the Federal Ministry for Climate Protection, Environment, Energy, Mobility, Innovation and Technology (BMK) and commissioned by the Austrian Research Promotion Agency (FFG) as part of the "AAL Programme".