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e-Learning Tools for Informal Caregivers of Patients with Dementia—A Review Study

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Smart Education and e-Learning 2020

Part of the book series: Smart Innovation, Systems and Technologies ((SIST,volume 188))

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Abstract

Currently, due to the changing demographic trends, there is a growing number of older people suffering from aging diseases such as dementia. Dementia is a neurological disorder, which develops gradually, but progressively. Especially in the last stage of dementia, patients are fully dependent on caregiver’s help since they are not able to take care of themselves. The purpose of this article is to explore the use of e-learning as an informal caregiver’s tool for persons with dementia and discuss its benefits and limitations in order to improve the quality of life of caretakers of people with dementia. The methodology is based on a literature review of the research topic, i.e., the use of e-learning tools for informal caretakers of patients with dementia in the period of January 1, 2015 to June 30, 2019. The findings show that the informal caregivers in all identified articles were satisfied with the e-learning platform, program, or the course whose content tried to help them acquire more information and knowledge about the disease, as well as educate them how to cope with the perceived distress and enhance empathy for their patients. One of the main limitations of this review is a lack of studies found on the research topic. However, this fact has been confirmed by other research studies, which reveal that technologies evaluated for informal caregivers are rare. Therefore, more research should be done in this area.

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Acknowledgements

This study is supported by the SPEV project 2020, run at the Faculty of Informatics and Management, University of Hradec Kralove, Czech Republic. The authors thank Josef Toman for his help with the data collection.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Applied Linguistics, Faculty of Informatics and Management, University of Hradec Kralove, Hradec Kralove, Czech Republic

    Blanka Klimova & Marcel Pikhart

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  1. Blanka Klimova
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  2. Marcel Pikhart
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Blanka Klimova .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Computer Science and Information Systems, InterLabs Research Institute, Bradley University, Peoria, IL, USA

    Vladimir L. Uskov

  2. Bournemouth University, Poole, UK

    Robert J. Howlett

  3. Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology, Centre for Artificial Intelligence, University of Technology Sydney, Sydney, Australia

    Lakhmi C. Jain

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© 2020 The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.

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Klimova, B., Pikhart, M. (2020). e-Learning Tools for Informal Caregivers of Patients with Dementia—A Review Study. In: Uskov, V., Howlett, R., Jain, L. (eds) Smart Education and e-Learning 2020. Smart Innovation, Systems and Technologies, vol 188. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-5584-8_8

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