Grouple is a ‘collaborative caring’ tool I have been working on for the last 5 months with a team of designers. Supported by the Design Council in conjuncation with the Department of Health, Grouple is one of five projects aimed to help people live better with dementia.

The Design Council run a series of challenges.  To find out more about this challenges and the others, please visit their website.

Thursday 26th April was the launch event for the projects at the Design Council and what a fantastic event it was! Each project had its own area to display their work and Paul Burstow, Minister Of State for Care Services came along to provide an opening speech.

The room was full of dementia experts, all eager to hear about the projects and understand how design can play a role in helping people live better with dementia.

The Design Council had created a series of displays explaining the role of design and importance it plays in social projects. The key words were ‘human centred’, ‘visual’, ‘iterative’ and ‘collaborative’. These words are essential parts of the design process – the end user must be the main focus at all times, the design needs to be appealing and easy to understand, the design has to evolve from learnings over time and being open to a others ideas and suggestions throughout means your end result is more likely to be a success.

There was something special about the reflection of the word ‘collaborative’ on the floor to reinforce the message!

The Projects
Dementia Dogs have designed a blue print for training ‘career change’ guide dogs to become help for people with dementia, Buddi have designed a prototype wrist band to prevent people with dementia from wandering, Trading Times have designed a service for helping primary carers find appropriate work while caring and Ode have designed a prototype scent timer to encourage people with dementia to enhance their appetite.

The five teams had 3 minutes to stand up and explain what their project was about. It was a great way to gain a concise understanding of the challenges each team decided to face and their outcome.

Project Grouple
Grouple is a caring and sharing tool for families living with dementia.

The aim is to relieve the isolation and stress of the primary carer by sharing care, extending the family network and encouraging others to become involved. Based on a timeline, the family can post events, view other people’s events, spot patterns over time and plan for the future. The idea is to encourage families to discuss dementia to reduce the stigma, support each other through out difficult times and remember the good times.

We have a working prototype which four families are currently testing and we are now looking for more families to test the site to enable us to develop the system into a public beta for the end of the year.

Valuable insights have been appearing from families using the system. Patterns have been forming, communication has been improving and stories of engagement have shown through.

There are 670,000 primary carers in the UK  who all help to save the NHS £8billion! These carers need support and we really believe that our system is a valuable tool to help.

We are currently looking for partners, organisations to collaborative with and people who can help us scale the prototype and get it to market!

There is an explanitory animated video on the Grouple website with a feedback section and a place to leave your details if you’re interested in finding out more or joining us on our journey. You can also help raise awareness by following us on Twitter @GroupleCC

WhyNotAssociates have created a series of films to explain the challenge and projects which can be seen on the dedicated Living Well With Dementia website.

Thank you to everyone that came to the launch and the exhibition.