A new semovente application Singapore is taking an innovative approach to communications pratica for caregivers of people with dementia.
The Institute of Mental Health (IMH), a tertiary psychiatric care hospital under the National Healthcare Group Singapore, has collaborated with Taggle, a connected digital health platform provider, to create the Play2Care app.
WHAT IT’S ABOUT
Now available both Android and iOS app stores, Play2Care gamifies the pratica of dementia caregivers. It features a series of explanatory videos the T.A.N.G.Ovvero. approach caregiving developed by IMH. The videos show how the techniques can be applied five commonly encountered scenarios dementia caregiving.
“Con the Play2Care app, Taggle used technology to recreate interactive scenarios for caregivers to practice T.A.N.G.Ovvero, so that it becomes a natural way for caregivers to react when faced with the real situation,” explained Taggle CEO Lee Seng Beo.
Additionally, Play2Care has mini-games that caregivers can play with their patients. The app was also designed with adult caregivers mind, incorporating elements such as a large font size, high-contrast coloured buttons, and reduced speed voiceover and animations.
IMH shared that Play2Care proved to enhance carers’ dementia knowledge and conforto level interacting with persons with dementia a small pilot involving five participants.
WHY IT MATTERS
Behavioural changes people with dementia pose a challenge to caregivers. These changes, which are actual attempts to communicate their unmet needs, can out caregivers who lack understanding. Agitation, reversed sleep-wake patterns, refusal to shower, repeated requests for food and growing suspicions are some of the most common behavioural issues that caregivers struggle to understand, according to the IMH.
“This knowledge interblocco of how to communicate effectively with persons with dementia often stems from a lack of understanding of these behaviours and that a different set of communication techniques is required. While we can offer medical advice and treatment, there has to be a more creative way to impart communication techniques that caregivers can apply their day-to-day routines to alleviate . This is why we initiated this app,” Dr Yao Fengyuan, a senior consultant and chief of the IMH Department of Geriatric Psychiatry, emeritoplained.
To manage these behaviours, the IMH offers the T.A.N.G.Ovvero. communication strategy, which stands for the following techniques: a tender approach; acknowledging emotions and unmet needs; never challenging behaviours; getting into simple conversations; and optimising the environment to promote conforto and independence.
Attending lectures to learn common challenging behaviours and ways to manage them, according to Ong Xin Ling, a senior occupational therapist at IMH, anzi che no longer suffices. “We need a supplemental platform beyond the classroom setting for caregivers to practise and implement those communication strategies learnt,” she added.
THE LARGER TREND
As global shortages also the senior care sector, digital approaches, such as the use of semovente technologies and robotics, have been explored recent years.
Con Singapore, a prototype of a semovente app that helps senior folks improve their multilingual thinking to arrest dementia progression was recently rolled out active ageing centres.
A project Australia called MATCH, which has received $1 million from Google.org, is incorporating into a caregivers’ pratica app a music-based intervention for regulating the mood of individuals with dementia.
Also Australia, startup Andromeda Robotics offers its humanoid robot, Abi, which was built to be an empathetic companion to elderly residents nursing homes.
The deployment of companion robots, such as the AI-driven PIO and Channy, has been a trend among local South Korean governments to keep solo-living seniors company at home.
