The EDEN project is motivated by the increasing number of people with dementia in the EU., and the need to have a common approach in Europe towards this important societal challenge. With an aging population and the risk of developing dementia increasing with age, a significant rise in the number of elderly people with dementia is expected in the coming decades. The EDEN project will support the European Union’s vision on combating Alzheimer’s and other types of dementia as a top priority within active and healthy ageing by Embracing DEmeNtia in a more holistic and co-creating way, acknowledging that it the care of demented citizens is a societal challenge that needs a collaborative approach. The target groups of the EDEN project are; 1) relatives, 2) health and care professionals and 3) civil society, and within this “target group triangle” as a starting point, the main objective of the project is to create increased awareness about the importance of relatives role in the care demented family members, and a closer collaboration on local level between the three target groups of the project. In order to reach the main objective, the EDEN project will produce 5 concrete intellectual outputs, and each partner will be responsible for the coordination of an intellectual output. IO1 - Needs analysis IO2 - EDEN Learning and Information material IO3 - EDEN Community Collaboration Concept IO4 – EDEN Interactive Learning Platform IO5 - Policy and Implementation Recommendations The EDEN project will be implemented by 6 partners from 5 EU countries; DK, UK, NL, ES and IT. All partners are involved in the European Innovation Partnership on Active and Healthy Ageing and are socalled reference sites, and will thus have great opportunities to disseminate and create sustainable collaboration within their local health eco systems as well as with the other european regions, research institutions and NGOs that take part in the partnership. The management philosophy and methodology of the EDEN project is action research, with a strong design thinking and co-creation approach. Hence in each country a local reference group will be created, consisting of relevant stakeholders like relatives, the local alzheimers association, health and care providers, relatives associations etc. that will be part of the entire project, through the organization of at least 3 local dialogue and co-creation meetings. To ensure the European added value of the project and create optimal opportunities for transfer of results, the project will be supported by a European reference group consisting of important actors within the subject of the project, such as Alzheimers Europe, European Patient Forum. The EDEN project contains a range of different dissemination activities in order to ensure broad knowledge and opportunities for further uptake and transfer beyond the partnership. These activities are; articles on local and European level, multiplier events such as dialogue and co-creation meetings on both local and European level, as well as final seminars and conferences, alos on both local and European level.
The Embracing Dementia project is motivated by the increasing number of people with dementia in the EU, and the need to have a common approach in Europe towards this important societal challenge. With an aging population and the risk of developing dementia increasing with age, a significant rise in the number of elderly people with dementia is expected in the coming decades. The project supports the European Union’s vision on combating Alzheimer’s and other types of dementia as a top priority within active and healthy ageing by Embracing DEmeNtia. The main objective of the project is to create increased awareness about caring as a collaborative process between the four target groups: Persons living with dementia, relatives, health and care professionals and civil society organisations/volunteers. In order to reach the main objective, the EDEN project has produced five concrete intellectual outputs: IO1 - Needs analysis. It is based on 12 individual and 13 focus groups interview with relatives, volunteers and professionals. Results from Needs Analysis are available in the project and is presented in a research article: Valentina Bressan et all: “Needs, issues, and expectations on dementia care at home across Europe to inform policy development: Findings from a transnational research study”. IO2 – Learning and Information material. The main objective of the materials was to provide knowledge, awareness or support living and dealing with dementia regardless of whether it is a family member, a volunteer or oneself. There are developed criterias for the selection of existing materials into following areas: • To be able to cope with the future • To feel supported and collaborate with others • To be socially included • To understand and cope with dementia All materials are available on the Embracing Dementia learning and teaching platform. IO3 - Community Collaboration Concept. The CCC builds on existing material and experiences from dementia-friendly communities and goes a step further providing a concrete proposal, on how to actually build up communities that are dementia-inclusive. By creating a close collaboration, transparent dialogue and understanding between all stakeholders; private as well as public. Therefore, the CCC is developed as a process model, which helps the relevant stakeholders to go from a desired wish to be a community embracing dementia, to actually becoming such a community. The CCC i available in a short/pixie model on English, Spanish, Dutch, Italian and Danish on the platform. The entire CCC document with a knowledge base, methods, hand-outs i.e. is available on English on the platform. IO4 – EDEN Interactive Learning Platform. The platform has four target group entrances and each of those are organised according to the structure of materials from IO 2. By this the platform not only brings along information and learning materials for each target group, it also supports common access to the materials of the other groups supporting common understanding and collaboration. The platform is available in all project languages; English, Danish, Dutch, Italian and Spanish. See the English platform here: http://embracingdementia.eu/ IO5 - Policy and Implementation Recommendations. The document gathers all the project’s learning and experiences into a common project summary, and a description of how the partners ensure a more permanent use and implementation of the results from the EDEN project. The partners elaborate the possibilities to continue working with the knowledge from the Embracing Dementia project, and especially the platform and the Community Collaboration Concept. The partners will actively use the platform and its content in educational situations towards health professionals as either qualifying further education or as introductory training for new staff. The Community Collaboration Concept, which is an integrated part of the platform, has already been – and will continue to be – used in workshops where local communities – e.g. elderly homes – want to co-create local solutions for dementia friendly and inclusive societies. The partners have agreed to meet once a year to go through the platform for eventual changes and updates. Each partner will go through the material in their language and SDEO will be responsible for the concrete updating of the website, as this partner has been responsible for the entire development and creation of the platform. ECHAlliance, being the pan European partner of the project, will in the near future try to create a Thematic Innovation Ecosystem (TIE) focusing on Dementia.