I Do Service

Walking the dog, meeting friends at the pub, singing, cooking, volunteering…. Actively participating in meaningful activities is necessary to our well-being as it offers emotional, creative, and intellectual stimulation. However, opportunities to access meaningful activities tend to shrink due to dementia-related changes.

The 2-year IDoService project (2020-2022) aims to develop tools to support people living with mild dementia to plan, connect with and participate in activities they enjoy. These activities are important to allow them to realise themselves and to be fully involved in their communities.

To achieve this, it is essential to have a good understanding of what people like to do, what is available to them and what is not, and which support or which services might be helpful. In consequence, the IDoService project actively involves relevant stakeholders: people living with mild to moderate dementia, their family and friends as well as other stakeholders in the field of dementia and meaningful activities. Their lived experience is essential for developing user-friendly tools to support participation in activities. 

As a first step, we will conduct interviews with the community. We will conduct individual and group interviews with people living with mild to moderate dementia, their family and friends, and with other stakeholders in the field of dementia and meaningful activities. We will discuss together the availability, accessibility, needs, and wishes regarding social and leisure opportunities for people at early stages of dementia.

The interviews will be completed with a literature review and an overview of local services offer and access support to them (e.g., financial support, specific transportation offer) regarding activities for people living with dementia in the Greater Manchester.

This step will provide a clear overview of the available opportunities regarding meaningful activities, and a working basis for the co-design workshops (step 2). 

[RESULTS] Understanding access to meaningful activities for people with dementia: Insights from interviews with the community (video)

In a second step, we will conduct co-design workshops with stakeholders to develop together the IDoService. Co-design, or participatory design, is an approach that actively involves all relevant stakeholders to develop design ideas, make design decisions, and develop workable products. The underlying idea is to design with stakeholder to help ensure the result meets their needs and is usable.

Insights from Step 1 (i.e., interviews with the community) will be presented to participants during the first workshop and we will explore speculative design ideas in response to this data. The following workshops will be devoted to refining these initial ideas by exploring potential service models (content, features, etc.) to lead to the creation of experiential prototypes discussed in term of perceived usefulness and user-friendliness. The prototypes will be evaluated in the last project step.

This third and last step will consist of asking a panel of potential users to give us their impressions and feedbacks regarding prototypes developed in Step 2 (i.e., co-design).

To that end, the prototypes will be tested by people living with mild to moderate stage of dementia and a family member/close friend. We will focus on characteristics such as perceived usefulness and user-friendliness but also the potential perceived changes linked to autonomy, social participation, decision making and quality of life.

News and Event Publications

• IDoService project designs “I Can Do Pathway” booklet to support wellbeing through activities - June 2022
• IDoService project hosts second series of co-design workshops on developing skills exchange service - March 2022
• IDoService project hosts first codesign workshop about developing a skills exchange service (page 4) - December 2021

• IDoService project team shares interview results and discusses first design ideas with project participants (page 11) - October 2021

• IDoService project team finalises interviews with the community (page 6) - July-August 2021

• IDoService webinar raises awareness about dementia (page 9) - May 2021

• Supporting people with dementia as we remove COVID restrictions is essential for wellbeing - May 2021

Academic Publications

• An overview of current practices and approaches to co-designing services with and for people with dementia towards developing a framework for best practice (research paper) - July 2022
• Understanding access to meaningful activities for people with dementia: Insights from interviews with the community(video) - March 2022
• Designing support and social participation to foster wellbeing during the dementia journey (video) - May 2021
• Tournier, I.; Orton, L; Dening, T.; Ahmed, A.; Holthoff-Detto, V.; Niedderer, K. An Investigation of the Wishes, Needs, Opportunities and Challenges of Accessing Meaningful Activities for People Living with Mild to Moderate Dementia. Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2023, 20, 5358. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph20075358
• Niedderer, Kristina, Isabelle Tournier, Laura Orton, and Steve Threlfall. 2023. I Can Do: Co-Designing a Service with and for People with Dementia to Engage with Volunteering. Social Sciences 12: 364. https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci12060364

Other Resources

• I Can Do Pathway guide and workbook. View online, download PDF or get physical copy of booklet.

• IDoService Symposium - Facilitating inclusion and empowerment for people living with dementia in Greater Manchester (video of presentation)

PROJECT TEAM

• Dr Isabelle Tournier, Main Researcher, Postdoctoral Researcher in Psychology and Design, Manchester School of Art
• Professor Kristina Niedderer, Project Supervisor, Professor of Design, Manchester School of Art
• Laura Orton, Research Assistant in Design, Manchester School of Art

Advisors

• Professor Anya Ahmed, Professor of Wellbeing and Communities, Manchester Metropolitan University
• Professor Tom Dening, Professor of Dementia Research, University of Nottingham
• Professor Vjera Holthoff-Detto, Head, Geriatric and Psychiatric Clinic, Alexianer St Hedwig Hospital, Berlin, Germany
• Ingeborg Griffioen, Director of Panton Healthcare Design, Deventer, Netherlands
• Professor Dew Harrison, Professor of Digital Media Art, University of Wolverhampton