RemoDem: Delivering support for people with dementia in remote areas

Citation

Bowes A, Dawson A & McCabe L (2018) RemoDem: Delivering support for people with dementia in remote areas. Dementia, 17 (3), pp. 297-214. https://doi.org/10.1177/1471301216643848

Abstract
RemoDem aimed to develop, test and evaluate services for people with dementia in remote areas of the Faroe Islands, Greenland, Sweden and Scotland. Formative and summative evaluation used a flexible research design including collection of baseline data, interviews and focus groups with key informants and data relating to service users, i.e. people with dementia and their carers. Challenges for service providers included organisational difficulties, lack of clear information about their populations with dementia and lack of knowledge in local communities. Test sites which developed services building on their particular local starting points adopted both specialist and ‘off the shelf’ technologies and found that these were generally helpful for people with significant support needs. The flexible research design was found to be essential in the real world conditions of the service development and evaluation. Services were more successful where more mature and less experimental technologies were used. The new services promised to address effectively challenges of remoteness including distance, communication and workforce deployment issues.

Keywords
dementia; dementia care; remote areas; telecare; care technology

Journal
Dementia: Volume 17, Issue 3

People

Professor Alison Bowes

Professor, Faculty of Social Sciences

Dr Alison Dawson

Senior Research Fellow, Faculty of Social Sciences

Professor Louise McCabe

Professor, Dementia and Ageing