With the growing life expectancy, new health problems are commonly found in our senior population. One of the biggest health challenges in old age is dementia. The Dementia India Report 2010 has estimated that over 3.7 million people in India are affected by dementia, a number that is expected to double by 2030. There are multiple ways that families in India try to address this issue when they have a PlwD in their family. There are residential care homes, daycares, etc. However, the sheer volume of people requiring these facilities is getting larger and the facilities are falling short (as observed in our studies). Dementia care requires not just physical care but psychiatric care as well with a lot of other experts in physiotherapy, neuropsychology, etc. All of these experts are not found under one roof easily.

Dementia, in its most common form, Alzheimer’s disease is a long-term and degenerative condition. Therefore, not everyone can afford a facility like a care home for a large number of years and families try and manage the symptoms at home. Also, not everyone is able to cope with guilt, regret and the social pressure of having their loved ones placed in a care home. In a lot of cases, conditions of dementia are manageable at home and most of the families of PlwDs are willing to take care of and to look after their loved ones at home. However, they lack the skill and knowledge to take care of their loved ones at home.

Tapas Elder Care is a care home located in the city of Pune in India for PlwDs with a focus on treatment and care, structured into a person-centric approach. Tapas caters to an urban middle-class user group who are willing to and are in need of placing their loved one with dementia in a care home. In this project, we propose a home care solution with hybridization or a combination of the expertise and care from a professional care home like Tapas, and the care provided by the family which could possibly lead to a desirable outcome in terms of the quality of life of not only the PlwDs but also their family members. A Service Design and Value Co-creation perspective is essential for this to work.

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• Assisted Home Care for Dementia Patients......