DIANA | The new project of Cáritas Coimbra to support nurses of people with dementia
Cáritas Coimbra is involved in the latest European project that aims to support nurses of people who suffer from dementia. The kick-off meeting of DIANA – Digital Intelligent Assistant for Nursing Applications took place in Vienna, on February 20th and 21st.
DIANA was approved under the AAL Programme, with Portuguese funding being provided by FCT- Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia. The consortium consists of Cáritas Coimbra and the UCT – Universidade Católica Portuguesa (Portugal), EET Europarts and the Geriatrische Klinik St.Gallen (Switzerland), Bluepoint (Romania) and the Technische Universität Wien and Cogvis (Austria), who is the coordinator.
At the first official meeting, Cáritas Coimbra was represented by Flávia Rodrigues, from the Innovation Department. Together, the partners discussed the content and development of DIANA, in which Cáritas Coimbra will implement the pilot that will involve nurses, caregivers and people suffering from dementia.
There are over 9.9 million new cases of dementia each year worldwide, implying one new case every 3.2 seconds. By 2018, the global cost of dementia rises above 900 billion euros – 80% of which are related to formal and informal care costs.
Recognizing that there is a need to find an answer to this reality, DIANA intends to provide a new product to optimize the nurses’ work procedures for people with dementia through the use of 3D artificial intelligence sensors. This solution aims to support the nursing staff in complex tasks such as: monitoring patient safety, controlling walks at night, reacting to alarms from existing sensors and preventing false alarms, supporting activities of daily living and observing patient health trends, to record data for further expert evaluation.
