Alzheimer Nederland has made a record amount of 3 million euros available to a national partnership that investigates how people with dementia (and their loved ones) receive the right help and support. The partnership – SPREAD+ – is co-led by the University Network for Elderly Care UMCG (UNO-UMCG) from Groningen.
People with dementia cannot live without help and support. But where exactly is the need? What helps who? And how can solutions match someone’s personal situation even better?
“With dementia, the differences are large and the needs also differ enormously. From person to person, but also from day to day,” says director Gerjoke Wilmink of Alzheimer Nederland. ,,What is needed, what is still possible and will it all help? This research helps with that.”
“The psychosocial and technological interventions are currently not finding their way into practice sufficiently”, says Sytse Zuidema, chair of the UNO-UMCG and professor of Geriatric Medicine & Dementia in Groningen. “A lot of valuable research has been done. With this subsidy, universities, universities of applied sciences and knowledge institutes will be brought together.”
Identifying the need for healthcare technology
The UNO-UMCG will use part of the subsidy for an inventory of the need for care technology among informal carers and care professionals. This inventory focuses, among other things, on the application of sensor technology to monitor care problems in people with dementia living at home. This technology is being developed within the MOOD-sense research project by the UNO-UMCG and Hanze University of Applied Sciences Groningen.
Part of the subsidy will also go towards improving the recognition and screening of delirium in people with dementia living at home.