Meiland, F. J. M.

In the European Rosetta project three separate, previously developed, ICT systems were improved and integrated to create one modular system that helps community-dwelling people with mild cognitive impairment and dementia in different stages of the disease. The system aims to support them in daily functioning, monitor (deviations from) patterns in daily behaviour and to automatically detect emergency situations.

Objective: To investigate how informal carers of community dwelling persons with dementia value the Meeting Centers Support Programme (MCSP) for people with dementia and their carers, including the carer support activities, such as informative meetings, discussion groups and individual consultation, and to explore if characteristics of the carers are related to their satisfaction with and effectiveness of the support programme. 

Several studies have shown that the combined community-based Meeting Centres Support Programme (MCSP) for people with mild to moderate dementia and their carers were more effective in reducing behavior and mood problems of people with dementia than traditional nursing home-based (NH) day care. We therefore investigated in this study whether community-based (CO) psychogeriatric day care for people with mild to severe dementia combined with carer support (in accordance with the MCSP), is more effective than regular NH day care.