During the first 16 months of the project, the team’s efforts were focused on improving the CAREGIVERSPRO-MMD platform based on the end-users’ needs, ensuring optimal functionality and usability. To this end, healthcare professionals, people living with dementia and caregivers were consulted regarding the social networking and other services they would find most beneficial. Furthermore, a usability study with 58 participants (24 people living with dementia / mild cognitive impairment, 24 caregivers, and 10 healthcare professionals) was performed in January 2017 in four countries, yielding more than 80% satisfaction across a range of measures of the ease of use and perceived benefits and providing valuable feedback for the final tuning of the platform before the piloting phase.
The project is currently about to launch 4 parallel large scale pilot studies in Italy, Spain, UK and France, which will last for 18 months.
A total of 600 dyads will participate, divided into two groups: (i) a group using the CAREGIVERSPRO-MMD platform and (ii) a control group without access to the platform. This way the pilot studies aim at evaluating the benefits of using the CAREGIVERSPRO-MMD platform, by monitoring and comparing data of the user groups with respective data of the control groups. Each participant accessing the platform will be provided with a tablet, readily configured for using the CAREGIVERSPRO-MMD application.
If you have memory problems or you are a carer of someone experiencing memory problems, learn how you can take part in the pilot study through the following communication channels: