Dementia and innovative technologies

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Demographic change, the prevailing lack of skilled specialists in nursing and care and the ever increasing number of people in need of help and care are a challenge for our society. The number of comorbidities increases as people get older. Dementia is one of the most common mental illnesses which are not curable yet. In Germany there are an estimated 1.5 million cases of dementia (53,000 in the region of Schleswig-Holstein), in Denmark more than 85,000 people suffer from dementia. In Schleswig-Holstein the lack of skilled specialist becomes especially apparent: some nursing homes do not accept new residence for example. This clearly impacts the quality of care being provided and the quality of life of those affected. This project puts its main focus on the people suffering from dementia and on the improvement of their quality of life. The project’s overall objective is to establish welfare and health technologies to support people suffering from dementia in maintaining their routines both in homes and at home in the environment they are used to and in their families. The added value will not be the sheer application of technologies but to adjust, adapt and further develop these technologies based on the users’ needs, routines and processes – the ultimate goal is to support the user as best as possible. The first part of the project will be a cross-border analysis of existing potential and assumed benefits. This will lower the barriers to market entry for the German-Danish health market with the help of targeted measures and thus will help SME to enter that market. Best practice approaches will be developed from the processes of adjusting and further developing the technologies as well as from implementing three pilot studies on two occasions. These new approaches will then be applied in research and teaching and in the area of further training. Another essential component in the effort to overcome the lack of skilled specialists is the development of competencies for health care professions based on eHealth and dementia as main topics, this will largely take place in the field of further training and result in the establishment of a further training certificate.

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