iDEM support

The iDEM-Support project is being funded for three years by the Innovation Fund of the Joint Federal Committee. It aims to translate the WHO's digital training and support manual "iSupport" for the empowerment of family carers of people with dementia and adapt it to the German healthcare context.

In addition, the manual is to be expanded to include a module for acquiring digital health literacy (dGK) and an interaction option for dialogue between those affected. Furthermore, the adapted version of iSupport will be used to demonstrate the reduction of psychological stress for carers of people with dementia.

In order to achieve these goals, interviews with family carers, focus groups and think-aloud sessions with family carers and experts will be conducted in addition to translation, cultural adaptation and the development of the module for acquiring dGK. A randomised controlled study will be conducted in the second half of the project to demonstrate the reduction in the burden on family carers.

The consortium lead for this project is the Chair of Health Care Research at the Department of General Practice at Ruhr University Bochum. Other consortium partners are the Chair of Medical Biometry and Epidemiology at Ruhr-Universität Bochum, the Chair of Didactics and Educational Research in Health Science and the Junior Professorship of Digital Health at Witten/Herdecke University as well as Ergosign GmbH. The project also works closely with practice partners such as the German Alzheimer Society, Wir pflegen e.V. and Letzte Hilfe Kurse GmbH.