Mobile care comes to patients with Alzheimer’s in Bangalore

The Nightingale Centre for Ageing and Alzheimer’s (NCAA) launched a tele-dementia care unit at its facility in Kasturinagar on Sunday.

The tele-dementia care unit will enable NCAA to effectively follow up the cases screened at its facility. “With the tele-dementia care service, we can now send our mobile unit equipped with a laptop and webcam to the patient’s home. This will help us see the patient’s residence, so that we can suggest what changes can be made to facilitate better mobility within the home for the patient,” said Dr Soumya Hegde, consultant psychiatrist.

The unit will boost NCAA’s services as it had been able to follow up only 25 of the 300 people whom it had screened, said Dr Hegde.

She said that connecting to caregivers will also be easier through the facility. “Through this service, caregivers can not only seek medical guidance, but also participate in the regular support group meetings without having to leave the premises of their homes,” said Dr Hegde. The support group meetings usually have experts addressing the issues and concerns raised by the caregivers.

NCAA hopes to get technical support from Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) to get better connectivity.

Professor K Kasturirangan, member, Planning Commission, inaugurated the tele-dementia unit. He termed the setting up of the unit as a big and bold step that would make a difference. Kasturirangan said that 3.6 crore people in the country were suffering from Alzheimer's and the number was likely to double by 2020.

Kasturirangan said that the centre would play a vital role in helping policymakers understand the complexities involved in caring for patients with dementia and Alzheimer's. “We are in the process of looking at the 12th Planning Commission with an emphasis on three areas— agriculture, health and education,” he said.
UID for NCAA inmates

In another first, the inmates and elders associated with NCAA became a part of the pilot project under the Aadhaar scheme as 70 of them were enrolled for the Unique Identification (UID) number.

Dr Ashok Dalwai, deputy director-general, Unique Identification Authority of India, said, “Our focus is to reach out to vulnerable groups, like here. People with dementia or Alzheimer's may be left out, but as a pilot project we will like to capture their data."
He said the time to complete the process was 25 minutes more as compared to capturing of data of normal population.

“With a retina scan and fingerprint match, it will remove duplication and help the government reach out to those in need,” he said.
About the security threat concerns, Dalwai said, “Data will be encrypted and no raw data will be transferred and therefore not everyone will have access to the collected data.”

NCAA has also completed one year of its operation in the city.