Last Friday, HE Minister Toshimitsu Motegi, the Japanese Minister of Economic Revitalization, met with Swedish Care International (SCI) as part of his visit to Sweden to learn more about the methods used by SCI in exporting knowledge and know-how in dementia and elderly care internationally.
The minister was also very interested in the topic of digitalisation of this field and we discussed at length topics related to Geras Solutions and its Geras App, which aims to a one-stop solution for cognitive impairment diagnosis support and disease management.
We also shared our own dementia and elderly care smartphone apps to support caregivers (Memory Box, Elderly Care and Dementia Support) as well as the innovations that have arisen as a result of the Queen Silvia Nursing Award project in different countries. One such innovation belongs to this year’s Swedish scholar, Rebecca Eriksson, whose idea was an automatic toothbrush that supports patients with dementia and caregivers in reminding the user to brush their teeth. Overall, it was a fruitful discussion, as we agreed on the need for further digitalisation of the elderly and dementia care field.
After the meeting, we then accompanied the minister for a brief visit to SilviaBo. At SilviaBo, he had a firsthand look at the newly constructed apartments that were specially built and adapted to people with dementia and their partners at an affordable cost. The minister also learnt that the SilviaBo apartments were the eventual result of a collaborative effort between Stiftelsen Silviahemmet, IKEA and BoKlok.
SCI is very grateful for the time that Minister Motegi had set aside for this meeting, and we look forward to following up on this meeting with the ministry very soon.
