€4 million EU grant for research into providing sustainable informal care

Over €4 million worth of EU funding has been awarded to the international network ‘ENTWINE informal care’, led by Prof. Mariët Hagedoorn and Prof. Robbert Sanderman from the department of Health Psychology at the University Medical Centre Groningen (UMCG). The grant will be used to train 15 novice researchers to study and solve questions relating to sustainable ways of providing informal care.Informal carers provide unpaid care to relatives or friends with a chronic illness, disability or another long-term care need. An ageing population and medical advances are causing a sharp rise in the care needs of the elderly and the sick, while the availability of informal carers in Europe is dropping. European healthcare systems rely heavily on the services of informal carers, but there are fears for the long-term sustainability of these systems. Who will look after our elderly relatives in the future, and how? For the purposes of this research, the ENTWINE network will focus on both the increasing need for care and people's willingness and capacity to provide care. Cultural and individual differences will be among the factors examined. Combining knowledge from the fields of both psychology and technology will enable the network to develop support to help informal carers keep up their commitment and to promote positive caregiving experiences. This could involve using social robots to reduce stress among informal carers, or fitting homes with sensors to monitor confuse...
Source: Positive Technology Journal - Category: Information Technology Tags: Positive App Positive Technology events Research institutions & funding opportunities Source Type: blogs