From the field of Psychology, we have been working on programs that develop various types of mental activities that reinforce both the cognitive aspects and the emotional management of each person in the last stage of the life cycle. They allow to reduce the effects of the passage of time, and increase the levels of personal well-being and health. To face the challenges posed by the problems of aging, we propose to develop a program that trains the cognitive functions that have greater importance in maintaining the active mind, among which we highlight verbal strategies, the development and strengthening of emotional aspects to improve self-esteem, exercises that raise perceptual skills, numerical intelligence is approached from different points of view, problem solving and decision-making are worked on, and finally thinking skills that are the essence of the greatest are included part of the proposed objectives. The demographic reality that lies ahead demands initiatives that train professionals and family environment in the management of resources both cognitive-functional maintenance and in the management of the effective interpersonal relationship in the promotion of emotional well-being. The line of work that we propose aspires to facilitate solutions at an integral level and that in the context of the professional user or family relationship - elderly person spontaneously emerge actions of care and prevention of cognitive impairment. The professional development of educators and support staff is intended. The target group is the trainers of socio-health care staff for dependent people in social institutions and at home. Taking into account that the training we will focus on three levels: 1. First, we are going to train trainers of health care staff. 2. The social health care staff will implement activities with dependent elderly people to enhance cognitive and emotional development based on the areas of multiple intelligences. 3. The socio-health staff will train the family members in strategies and skills to be able to attend more effectively to the elderly dependent people, being essential collaborators. We intend to develop training actions that meet the diversity of the elderly and better inclusion with significant teaching and learning styles. As an innovative aspect, this training will complement with professional development workshops the certificates of professionalism of socio-health care for dependent people in social institutions and dependent people at home. It will be developed from the perspective of the intervention and through daily activities by support staff and family members. The socio-health staff will train family members in strategies to enhance cognitive development in dependent elderly people.
The main objectives were to improve the quality of life for the elderly through cognitive improvement; to upskill care home professionals; to create high quality training materials for all relevant professionals, carers and end users; to increase partners’ staff knowledge. Also to understand the seven multiple intelligences, how they work with cognitive function.
The context for Active 2 is an ageing population in Europe and increasing demand for services that promote a good quality of life for the elderly. There is a significant need for quality training of care professionals who serve elderly people, in order to improve their wellbeing and health. Cognitive impairment in the elderly is linked to physical deterioration, and promoting cognitive health in later life can therefore ensure that people live healthily for longer. The project therefore saw the necessity of creating training for professionals and carers together with activities for seniors to keep their minds active. The project was aimed at addressing this need, in support of various European Commission initiatives in the prevention of Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias (2009, 2015,). The project also recognised the wider, supporting role of the family as carers as well as other auxiliary non-professionals and carers. Those project partners involved in training, wanted to increase their knowledge and teaching capacity in this sector in order to deliver high quality training to relevant institutions.