2023-12-04 09:43:31
“Unforgettable” is a platform for Alzheimer’s patients and caregivers. It is born from social need, since there are many families that need more help than there is to care for those who suffer from this neurological disease.
Image from the “Unforgettable” platform. Assigned.
And 80% of Alzheimer’s patients in Spain live with their families. They are often the ones who take on the role of caregiver. This has an impact on your mental and emotional health. In fact, 70% of cases suffer damage from this cause.
The doctor and Global Director of EvidenceJosep Alcaraz, in an interview with EFEsalud, tells us about this initiative for patients and caregivers of people suffering from Alzheimer’s: Unforgettable.
The platform is born, as the doctor explains, from a “social need.” Due to one’s own experience and knowing that of so many families with people who suffer from this disease, it was realized that there are “lacks of basic information and that health systems are saturated.”
This initiative was presented on November 5, International Day of Caregivers. As the doctor indicates, unlike International Alzheimer’s Day, September 21, this date does go unnoticed.
EFE/Ismael Herrero
Content of “Unforgettables”
With the motto “Forgetting may exist, but for us they are unforgettable” the initiative’s website opens.
The main objective of the project, as explained by Dr. Alcaraz, is to provide valuable information for all those caring for Alzheimer’s patients.
“We have proposed it on a digital platform because this facilitated the scalability of the project. Thus, it can be consulted even from a mobile phone and increases the capacity of access to different audiences,” indicates the health professional.
Page structure
The pages are divided into five key points, within which the fundamental contents of the initiative are presented:
Basic concepts: Cognition, orientation, attention and language.
The neurologist: Diagnosis, development, risk factors, daily life, home, car, diet.
The nurse.
The psychologist: Mental difficulties, behavioral problems and treatment without drugs.
The social worker: Support resources, health care sites, home hospitalization, telephone assistance, residences, disability and dependency and delegating responsibilities.
The project
The platform for Alzheimer’s patients and caregivers, “it is made by multidisciplinary health professionals. A neurologist, a social worker, a nurse and a psychologist participate. Basically these are the four professionals who are around everything that is the patient and a family member,” indicates Dr. Josep Alcaraz.
In addition, the information is written in different drop-down menus that we can access depending on what we want to search for and also in various videos as interviews with medical professionals.
Dr. Buongiorno (neurologist), the Director of Nursing Silvia Romero, the psychologists Laura Casas and Dolors Badenes, and Gemma Tomé as a social worker are the people who appear in the informative videos, addressing the most relevant topics in each of these areas.
The importance of the caregiver
Dr. Alcaraz emphasizes the importance of the role of the caregiver. “The caregiver plays a fundamental role, but he is a silent role.”
Likewise, remember that in many cases the caregivers are members of the patient’s family, which entails great emotional exhaustion, in addition to the physical.
“The person caring for their own family faces the impact of having to face a job for which they are not prepared. If you work in the hospital or nursing home, then you go home and, although you can take the problem with you, you are in a different space. The caregiver lives with it 24 hours a day,” says the doctor.
For all these caregivers who sometimes encounter problems related to the disease that overcome them, the Unforgettable platform is designed above all. Many questions arise when faced with a patient who is not able to swallow food, who wants to take the car to travel or who continues to live alone and all of these questions are answered on the project website.
Should an Alzheimer’s patient drive?
In the different articles presented in Unforgettables, we find topics such as existing support resources for Alzheimer’s patients, but also day-to-day problems. Thus, conflicts arise such as food for the sick, the home… and driving.
Thus, the question arises: Should a person with Alzheimer’s continue to drive?
To respond, an infographic has been created as a diagram, which we can rely on when we do not know how to evaluate the patient and their capabilities.
Before letting a patient with this pathology take his car, five aspects must be evaluated: attention, the ability to assess distances, simultaneous stimuli, quick reaction and traffic signs.
Image provided by Inolvidables.
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