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Co-Care project releases its last newsletter: A look at the past and towards the future

Picture of a group of persons standing and smiling. Logo of Co-Care at the top corner on the left. It is a light purple heart, text says "share to evolve, connect to remember".

Co-Care held its final conference on 14th December, and their last newsletter recaps their achievements and what they envision for the future.

Co-Care project has celebrated the end of its long and successful journey with a closing conference on 14th December 2022 in Brussels. In their final conference, partners presented Co-Care’s outcomes, explaining how this project will keep delivering important results even after its official end. The last newsletter of the project has also been released, summarising all the essential information about Co-Care, as well as its outcomes.

The project

The main aim of Co-Care project is to promote the co-creation of Information and Communications Technology (ICT) solutions for informal caregivers, who assist people affected by dementia or Alzheimer’s. Three main outcomes have been delivered at the end of the project:

  1. a state of play report regarding the existing ICT solutions
  2. a toolkit for informal cares
  3. a training course.
The outcomes

The first outcome of Co-Care is the State of Play Report, which is the result of a literature review of more than 150 sources and aims to identify Digital Solutions that have been developed to support caregivers’ needs. Partners found out that users’ contributions are not sufficiently kept into account when designing efficient resources for caregivers, which can lead to a loss of innovative ideas.

The second outcome is the toolkit for informal carers, developed in collaboration with caregivers from Spain, Portugal, and UK. The main aim of this toolkit is to support carers in choosing the best ICT solutions for them, whilst also providing all the information needed to use these digital solutions properly. Through the toolkit, users will also be able to create social networks and share experiences and impressions.

The third and last outcome is a training course, whose importance is well explained in the document “State of play report on co-created ICT-based Alzheimer care solutions”, produced by the Co-Care project partners. This training course would be essential to develop technological solutions in co-creation, bringing together ICT professionals, health and social care professionals and caregivers.

The final conference

The final event of Co-Care took place on 14th December in Brussels and it was a great occasion to discuss about the current circumstances that caregivers assisting people affected by dementia or Alzheimer’s find themselves in.

Maya Doneva, EASPD Secretary General, gave an overview of the project’s goals, and Claire Champeix from Eurocarers highlighted the primary socio-political, economical, and policy challenges faced by informal carers. She also pointed out that, despite the existence of initiatives such as the European Care Strategy, many weaknesses within these legislative tools still need to be properly addressed.

After the participants took part in a few interactive sessions where they reflected on their experiences with health applications, Anna Ramon-Aribau, the Co-Care Project Coordinator from the University of Vic, concluded the event by underlining how caregivers are often left behind, despite representing a large part of our society.

What is the future of Co-Care?

Co-Care partners’ work is not over: there is still a long way ahead to provide caregivers with more efficient co-created ICT solutions to support them in the best way. Co-Care’s partners will continue to address the existing challenges, encouraging the connections to maintain the work already done and to finally create real technological solutions to aid informal caregiving. Stay tuned for updates on key news and outputs to face the challenge against dementia and Alzheimer’s altogether.

 

To read the Co-Care project's final newsletter visit their webpage.