App to match people with dementia to carers
Providing care for people living with dementia at home can be challenging. Stress, burnout, and frequent staff changes among care workers affects the quality of care.
Research shows that matching care worker skills and characteristics to the specific needs and preferences of people living with dementia and their families and friends can improve care. This kind of matching can be done well by care managers and team leaders of small teams. For larger care providers, finding the best matches ‘live’ can be achieved better and faster using a computer.
There are already some apps helping people find the most suitable care workers, and software packages that create schedules for care workers and their clients. But no apps combine the two. Also, existing apps were not designed in collaboration with people with dementia, their families, friends and carers in the way we would like to.
Project aims
The aim of this project is to improve dementia care in the home by designing an app that:
- Matches the preferences of people living with dementia and their family and friend supporters with care providers
- Creates ‘live’ schedules for care workers and their clients based on clients’ needs
We will design the app in collaboration with people with dementia, their supporters, care workers and managers of care organisations.
What we hope to achieve
By the end of the project, we hope to have a prototype app that helps provide dementia care, personalised to the needs of the user and provider. We hope this will lead to improved care for people with dementia living at home.
Lead collaborators
- Rasa Mikelyte, University of Kent, Applied Research Collaboration Kent, Surrey and Sussex
- Chris Poyner, University of Birmingham, Applied Research Collaboration West Midlands
- Ilianna Lourida, University of Exeter, Applied Research Collaboration South West Peninsula
- Daniel Soria, University of Kent
ARC West Staff
