About Us | Forget Me Not

The Project "Forget me not 2.0"

The World Health Organisation estimates that by 2050 over 18 million European citizens will be suffering from dementia. Alzheimer's Europe estimates that the cost of dementia in Europe will exceed €250bn by 2030 and that a co-ordinated approach to dementia strategies at a European level has the potential to deliver real benefits. One in in 14 people over the age of 65 up has dementia, and the likelihood of developing dementia increases significantly with age.

According to Alzheimer's Europe, with no cure and no disease-modifying treatment currently available, people with dementia, their families and carers require high-quality care, support and information, to ensure they are able to live as well as possible, for as long as possible in their communities. There is a need across Europe to upskill health and social care professionals about the best way to provide care, however there is a lot that can be done to enable someone with dementia to live well with the condition. Care and support needs to be ‘person-centred’ - focused on that person's identity and their individual needs and preferences.

One of the key non-drug interventions is reminiscence. Reminiscence is a well-established practice that has been used widely since the 1960s to improve the lives of people living with dementia. It gives people the opportunity to share their stories and experiences, and helps them remember who they are. This can boost their self-confidence and social interactions and make valuable connections between their past and the present. In most care settings, this takes the form of a ‘Memory Box’ which is used to collect photos, cuttings and artefacts. This project addresses this transnational need by both building on a previous Erasmus+ project, 2017-1-UK01-KA202-036686, ‘Forget Me Not’, which developed and tested an online platform which served as a digital memory box, and 5 training modules for FMN users (professional and non-professional carers and independent users). This continuation project builds on the previous outcomes and research recommendations from an associated project conducted by Plateforme des Aidants in France to enhance the technology of the platform, produce both a more detailed set of training resources and facilitate wider access to training.

To develop a strategy that can be adopted at a European level, it has to be tested in a variety of contexts and partners will test the training and resources in their own contexts. The benefits of so doing will be to demonstrate the flexibility of the outputs and how they can be adopted to address differing needs. The original platform was developed in 5 languages and this new project will add a further three languages. Given the backgrounds of carers and the nature of the target groups, it is important that they have access to the resources in their home languages. This transnational approach also enables different cultural dimensions to be addressed, both in terms of the resources development and accounting for cultural differences.

The objectives of this project are to:

Develop the Forget Me Not platform to make it more widely accessible through improving the accessibility for those with impairments and developing further language versions
Introduce an interactive exchange facility
Develop an interactive cognitive assessment tool to establish the degree of independent use that a sufferer can work with the platform
Develop additional training modules and resources on basic ICT skills needed to use the platform, how to develop specific reminiscence activities in both care home setting and the home and how to establish training champions and run workshops
Pilot, test, evaluate and refine the new developments and training resources in collaboration with our network of associated partners
Identify and use tools to evaluate impact in the short, medium and longer term
Disseminate the outcomes widely and build an online network of expertise

The Partners

The Union Départementale des Associations Familiales of Charente (France)
is an institution in charge of defending and representing the interests of all familie. It brings together 61 family associations, i.e. more than 5000 families. It carries out political action at local level towards the public authorities. In response to its observations of families’ needs, it also develops and manages numerous services and activities for them.
For this project, it relies on the experience of the Grand Cognac hospitals and a doctor in sociology. It is responsible for the coordination of the project and its implementation and dissemination strategy.
www.udaf16.org

edEUcation (United Kingdom)
Initiator of the Forget Me Not project, is a consultancy specialising in education with experience in international education programmes.
It is also qualified in the development of online tools and educational programmes for professionals. It is responsible for the various technical works especially in relation to the evolution of the digital platform and the adaptation of tools to facilitate digital access.
www.edeucation.com

The University of Zaragoza (Spain)
is a public teaching and research institution with a constantly updated range of courses, with more than 30,000 students and 5,100 teachers and researchers. Thanks to the numerous agreements it has signed, it welcomes foreign students and involves its students and staff in various international exchange programmes. It teaches neuropsychology, psychopathology and gerontology and conducts research on dementia and caregiving. It will develop online tutorials for new users of Forget Me Not.
www.unizar.es

NGO FRODIZO (Greece)
is a member of the Greek Federation of Alzheimer’s Disease and Related Disorders. It works with elderly people, dementia patients and formal / informal carers. It runs a day care centre for people with dementia in Patras, offers a home intervention program for families of these people and training seminars for carers. It also develops information and awareness-raising actions and online interventions. It will develop interactive cognitive assessment tools.
www.frodizo.gr

OJB «Shalom» (Bulgaria)
is a non-governmental organisation with a strong social welfare system. It works in the field of physical, mental and emotional health with more than 600 people in 18 regional structures across the country. Its team is composed of professionals: social workers, psychologists, art therapists and personal assistants looking after people in need. Il also runs a day care centre for the elderly with daily activities. It will create guide sheets to deploy the activity in different contexts: individual and collective, at home and in institutions and according to the level of cognitive disorders.
www.shalom.bg

SOSU Østjylland (Denmark)
is a school that provides basic education to more than 3000 students, the majority of whom are women, in the field of social and health care, at home and in institutions, for a wide range of people, elderly, children and adults. Students and staff participate in international mobilities and the institution has its own multimedia production unit. It is currently running various projects: Dementia, respect and respite; Approaching multiethnicity and dementia in education and work... It is the quality manager for the project and will develop pedagogical approaches to train users.
www.sosuoj.dk

Resources

TRAINING MODULES

There are 5 training modules on the use of the Forget-me-not platform for reminiscence therapy. These training modules can be used for free by care providers or non-professional carers as they are adapted for both self-learning and face-to-face teaching. Their use is regulated by the rules of European Union's Erasmus+ programme, allowing anyone free access to the training materials, but forbidding any reproduction, further sale and modification without the consent of the project consortium.