Meet Neha Sinha – one of the youngest leaders in elderly care sector revolutionizing dementia care in India

We had the pleasure to interview our dear friend Neha Sinha, cofounder and CEO of Epoch Elder Care, an assisted living provider in India. Neha is a passionate specialist and advocate of dementia care in India, committed to making a difference in the field of elderly care in her country. Neha has been featured in the Forbes 30 under 30 Asia list in 2016 as well as interviewed by key national Indian media channels.

We have asked Neha to share her thoughts about recent dementia care developments in India, challenges brought by COVID-19 and how Swedish dementia and palliative care knowledge help her to change the approach to elderly care and to raise the skills of her team.

We have known Neha Sinha for many years – since she has been studying Palliative Care course at our partner Sophiahemmet University in Sweden in 2016. Swedish Care International was also glad to invite Neha, as an ambitious young leader, to take part in our international dementia summit Dementia Forum X in 2017 and 2019 which took place in the Royal Palace of Stockholm with global leaders from this sector and other high-level stakeholders.

Neha is managing Epoch Elder Care, a growing assisted living provider that is currently operating three homes in India. The holistic, person centered care approach is applied in their daily work with residents. Epoch Elder Care care has been using various Swedish Care International’s e-learning programs to raise the skills of their nursing teams and to strengthen the person centered care perspective with Swedish best practices since 2017. Our colleagues, Petra Tegman and Anukriti Banerjee, had an opportunity to visit the beautiful Frida home of Epoch Elder Care, while participating at the state visit of Sweden’s royal family to India.

Neha, please tell us a little bit about yourself.  

I am a clinical psychologist by training, and I am also trained in palliative care philosophy from Sophiahemmet University, Stockholm. I started my career as a counselor working with people with schizophrenia in a rehabilitation centre. After spending close to three years at the rehabilitation center, I joined hands with Kabir Chadha at Epoch Elder Care, then a home care provider. After a successful stint as the Head of Operations, I took over as the CEO of Epoch in December 2014 at the age of 28. As a young person with my expertise, it was difficult to be taken seriously in this industry initially. I believe that it needs grit, undying passion for your mission and a belief in yourself to keep things going!

Since my childhood, I have been influenced by elders, especially my grandmother and grandfather, who brought me up. My grandmother was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, and that has had a strong impact on me. I always had empathy towards elders, and I took up this opportunity to work in this field and make a difference. I have a strong passion to do something for all the grandparents in India, and make their lives more meaningful. The world views the elders’ life in shades of grey and silver, but I believe in a palette full of colours.

I have been featured in the Forbes 30 under 30 Asia list 2016. I have been one of the proud participants at the Dementia Forum X, and am a member of the World Young Leaders in Dementia Network. In India, I am one of the youngest leaders working in the elderly care segment.

Please tell us about dementia care in India. What are the main challenges? What developments and changes do you see?

Dementia is a misunderstood disease, and not many reach out for professional help related to dementia. There are not many specialists and doctors trained on dementia care in India. Many people misunderstand dementia to be a mental health issue and not a neurological one because of the behavioral and psychiatric symptoms associated with it.

There is stigma associated with dementia and assisted living for elders because looking after one’s parents is considered a moral responsibility in India. It is important for people in India to understand that dementia is a demanding condition, and one should not judge those who seek professional care for their parents with dementia. People are also not familiar with the true meaning of Quality of life and how good it is that person centred care can make such a difference.

Due to industry bodies such as Association of Senior Living India (ASLI), Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), the conversations around dementia are increasing in India, and Epoch has been an active participant of these discussions.

Families are reaching out to seek dementia care at their own homes, and few (especially where children are not living in India) are considering Assisted Living for dementia care. The pandemic has certainly changed the outlook and brought considerable focus on the importance of professional and specialized care for seniors.

How is COVID-19 currently affecting dementia care in India?

Similar to other health conditions, Covid-19 impacted dementia care in India, especially for dementia care at their own homes. Managing a person with dementia at home, given the lockdown and other hygiene restrictions of Covid-19 has been tough on families, and this has led to caregiver burnout. As we know, getting a person with dementia to wear a mask or take safety precautions is a difficult task.

At Assisted Living care homes, the dementia residents could not move outside the premises, and they felt even more disoriented and disconnected. Also, their family members could not come and meet them. Connecting persons with dementia with their families virtually over phones and Zoom calls has been difficult. At Epoch, we have been trying to keep our elders’ life as normal as possible especially by continuing to focus on activities, celebrations and resident engagement.

Epoch has been using Swedish Care International’s e-learning programs to train staffs for several years. Why have you chosen to apply Swedish elderly care methodologies in your institution?

I personally learnt and understood the four pillars of Silviahemmet’s philosophy of care – person-centred care, family support, teamwork and communication while I did the course at Sophiahemmet University in 2016.

Based on this, we recrafted Epoch’s Mission Statement and philosophy of care and our aim is to provide the highest possible quality of life for our elderly residents. We started inculcating this in our work practices and care processes and we started seeing a significant change in the quality of life of our residents. Something as small as how the admission form and the kind of information we need to take while admitting a resident became more person centric and collaborative with family.

Hence, we decided to formalize this as a training across all our care team members, especially nurses. It helped Epoch provide global standards of care, especially following the Swedish model.

Your team has just finished the newly released version of Silviahemmet dementia care e-learning program for caregivers. What were your goals when taking this e-learning program?

This e-learning program is focused on various aspects of senior care, care-quality assessment, dementia prevention, brain training, cognitive assessment, improvement, and this will aid the Epoch care team to understand global best practices. We wanted to standardize our training and give our nurses a good base to start off with before we did our in- person training program. It has certainly helped establish fundamental care practices and understanding of dementia.

Would you recommend other care managers to use this e-learning program? If yes, why?

At Epoch, the Facility Nurses, Facility Managers and Head of Clinical Operations have all taken the course. We would certainly recommend this course especially in a situation like ours where we induct staff with literally no geriatric or dementia training. This course is a great starting point to upskill careers efficiently and quickly.

Thank you Neha for sharing. Good luck!

Interested in seeing what life looks like at Epoch Homes? Check out this exciting video from the New Year’s Eve in 2020 or this informative interview explaining dementia care approach applied at Epoch Elder Care.

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Read more about Dementia Care e-learning program based on Sweden’s Silviahemmet Care Philosophy.

Follow the updates about the upcoming Dementia Forum X in May 2021.