I am Gubing Wang, a PhD student from Industrial Design Engineering faculty in TU Delft, and my research is about personalising dementia care through design. I initiated this research topic because my grandma has been diagnosed with a combination of vascular dementia and Alzheimer’s disease and my grandpa has started to show symptoms of forgetfulness. Spending my childhood with my grandparents make they so dear to me, and I wanted to do something for them. Throughout my PhD, I have encountered non-pharmacological interventions, such as music therapy; how to co-design with people living with dementia; the remaining capabilities of older adults; data-enabled design etc. In addition, I developed observant eyes and empathetic mindset, as well as an in-depth understanding about dementia care. Because I am studying abroad, each year I can only spend a few weeks with them. During my visit, I applied what I have learned and explored how helpful are they for my grandparents. I would like to share my stories about caring for my grandparents, and hope these stories could help the others who are caring for their loved ones.
Context
Before we start, I’d like to introduce the context. My grandparents are living at home with a full-time caregiver and a part-time caregiver. Grandma has reached late stage of dementia (according to the three-stage model). Even though she is not able to recognise grandpa and me anymore, and she has difficulty to communicate fluently, she still has her joys and sorrows every moment. Grandma is not able to walk by herself; a full-time caregiver is hired to assist her with going to the bathroom, eating, and washing. Yet, she is still able to do quite a few activities with her hands. I notice that she tends to be depressed sometimes, and says “I am stupid and useless now” with tears in her eyes, which breaks grandpa’s heart.
Problem statements
I want to increase the number of joyful moments in the daily life of grandma, and to break it down, I formulated a few problem statements:
What are the triggers of negative mood for grandma? Let’s call them negative triggers.
What are the triggers of positive mood for grandma? Let’s call them positive triggers.
How to effectively avoid the negative triggers and introduce positive triggers in the caring process for grandma?
The answers to the problem statements is an on-going list, I will share the items on the list one-by-one under the frame of the Need-driven Dementia-compromised Behavioural (NDB) model [ref]. For each item on the list, I will describe my approach, which might be more useful than the actual outcome, because each person living with dementia is different. Please let me know if you have better approaches and ideas!
Context
Before we start, I’d like to introduce the context. My grandparents are living at home with a full-time caregiver and a part-time caregiver. Grandma has reached late stage of dementia (according to the three-stage model). Even though she is not able to recognise grandpa and me anymore, and she has difficulty to communicate fluently, she still has her joys and sorrows every moment. Grandma is not able to walk by herself; a full-time caregiver is hired to assist her with going to the bathroom, eating, and washing. Yet, she is still able to do quite a few activities with her hands. I notice that she tends to be depressed sometimes, and says “I am stupid and useless now” with tears in her eyes, which breaks grandpa’s heart.
Problem statements
I want to increase the number of joyful moments in the daily life of grandma, and to break it down, I formulated a few problem statements:
What are the triggers of negative mood for grandma? Let’s call them negative triggers.
What are the triggers of positive mood for grandma? Let’s call them positive triggers.
How to effectively avoid the negative triggers and introduce positive triggers in the caring process for grandma?
The answers to the problem statements is an on-going list, I will share the items on the list one-by-one under the frame of the Need-driven Dementia-compromised Behavioural (NDB) model [ref]. For each item on the list, I will describe my approach, which might be more useful than the actual outcome, because each person living with dementia is different. Please let me know if you have better approaches and ideas!
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