iSupport Geneva
Helping carers to care
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iSupport introduction
Background.....
Dementia has a significant impact on patients, their families and society. Need of care starts early and evolves with the disease course, and care must adapt to the changes that occur throughout the course of the disease. Family members are the cornerstone of care. Family members provide help with decision making, daily activities, personal and health care, from the very beginning, through the course of the disease, to end of life care. The burden of taking care of a person with dementia is considerable, and is associated with strain and distress, and with psychological and physical health problems in caregivers, as well as high direct and indirect costs.
Caregiver burden can be reduced, and quality of care can be improved with appropriate interventions that provide information, skill training, and psychological support. However, these interventions are not easily accessible particularly for those who are more in need, and are not tailored to the specific needs of caregivers. Some issues related to dementia care do not differ across regions, others are more specific and depend on culture, context and available resources. Along with the expected global increases in dementia cases, and issues related to diagnosis and treatment, long term care is the major contention that dementia is a global public health priority.
To address this urgent public health problem, the World Health Organization (WHO) has partnered with international experts in caregiving and dementia to develop a comprehensive, flexible, online education portal named iSupport, that will be accessible via the Internet using personal computers, tablets or smart phones. The key component of the portal is the SupportMe intervention program aimed at improving care, empowering caregivers, and ultimately relieving the burden of caregiving. The portal is conceived and designed to be easily exported globally, and adapted to local settings and cultures. The key novelty of the SupportMe intervention is an algorithm that tailors the intervention itself, shaping content, order, and intensity of training, around the actual needs of each caregiver during the course of the disease.
Website purpose.....
This website is a prototpe built to demonstrate the use of an algorithm to tailor specific courses in order to meet individual needs. This prototype provides an opporunitity for caregivers to test the intervention and to give us feedback on the strengths and weaknesses of the approach we have taken.
The course....
The prototpye course we have worked with has 10 possible "modules" but not all of these will be taken by every caregiver.
1. General introduction to the illness and causes of dementia
2. How the disease evolves over time
3. Locally available diagnostic and treatment services
4. Key information about saftey, pensions and legal issues
5. Personal hygiene and dressing
6. Toileting and incontinence
7. Repeated questioning
8. Clinging, Agression and Wandering
9. Social isolation
10. Communication
After answering some quesitons, we'd like to give each caregiver the ten courses in a specific order which is most relavent for them. The way in which we would like to do this involves the use of an algorithm which selects which courses might be most relavent . Some of the modules should be followed in a particular order (e.g. introduction modules are more useful early on to most users), but the course you get is dependent or you needs.
Every user will be asked to answer some questions, and will then get a specific order and set of courses most relavent to them.
We'll then follow an interective course fitted around your needs
Our plan currently involves three key steps...
1) Intially we are looking for feedback on the prototype algorithm from somone with experience of caregiving
2) After taking on board the intital feedback we are then be interested to speak to a number of caregivers, or caregiver groups in the local area Alzheimer's association
3) From this collective feedback we will then develop the intervention with algorithm to be used in the Geneva Area.
Click here to get started!
Wireframe of course outline online diagram and example of courses selected....
