”It’s Our Gang” - Promoting Social Inclusion for People with Dementia by Using Digital Communication Support in a Group Activity

Social Inclusion and Isolation: Research for the Post-COVID Era and Beyond

“…A series of studies examined social connections in people with dementia, with a clear outcome across studies demonstrating that people with dementia benefit from, and appreciate a wide range of social activities and social inclusion mirroring the findings from the technology-based studies reported by Samuelsson et al (2021) and Fearn et al (2021). Using observational data and interviews with staff and people with dementia, the study by Motta-Ochoa et al (2021) highlights the key practices of social inclusion related to enabling time and flexibility to build relationships, empowering decision-making and including family members, seeking feedback from people with dementia, and importantly, assisting people with dementia to assist in caring roles for others to foster active social connections, rather than just being recipients of care.…”

“…Two studies looked at technology-based solutions to build and maintain social connections in people with dementia living in aged care facilities. In a qualitative study of people with dementia, Samuelsson, Ferm, and Ekström (2021) explored the benefits and sense of connection of a conversation group delivered via a digital communication platform to older adults living in different wards of a care facility. Participants chose from a set of topics and activities to engage in at each group session to provide some structure to the conversations.…”

The use of technology for social interaction by people with dementia: A scoping review

“…Eleven studies used reminiscence programmes [16,[53][54][55][56][57][58][59][60][61][62]. Nine used technologies as a conversation prompt [23,[63][64][65][66][67][68][69][70].…”

“…CIRCA [16,[53][54][55][56] CIRCA is based on a touch screen computer and allows PwD and their cares to choose from photos, videos and pieces of music with an aim to prompt reminiscence.…”

“…All the studies had themes that fall under the broad theme 'Communication prompt'; the media presented was noted to directly prompt communication by PwD in all the studies [18,24,[54][55][56]58,59,70,77]. Three studies found that technology prompted conversation that was more PwD led [24,54,55].…”