Almost a year after the death of her husband four years ago, there were noticeable changes in Indutayani Agarwal’s (74) behaviour. She had no difficulty remembering the past, but day-to-day activities would be a blur. She was diagnosed with dementia, and the best treatment was medication and brain-stimulating activities.
Dementia, says Dr. Alexander Martin, a neuro psychiatrist, is an irreversible, progressive brain disease, which leads to memory loss, thinking ability, depression and personality change among other things. “Unfortunately, in India, dementia is noticed only when it has progressively advanced as people do not go for frequent medical checkups.”
Amrita Patil Pimpale (32) got interested in the illness some years ago when she was in the UK pursuing her Masters in Management. She worked for a care home company in Northampton as their project manager, where she began to understand more about geriatric care and dementia. Ms. Pimpale subsequently enrolled in the University of Bradford, UK, to learn more about the illness.
She returned to Mumbai in 2012 with a trainer’s degree in dementia care, and started Echoing Healthy Ageing (EHA), which focuses on home-based therapies, counselling and dementia care training with an aim to enable the person suffering from dementia lead a normal life.
Dementia-sensitive care can make an enormous difference, she says. “The person with dementia has not lost their reason; instead they have lost the ability to process information. In the UK, dementia is top priority for the government whether in terms of research, medical treatment or quality care. However, in India, it is still in the nascent stages, and universities do not offer dementia-focused study programmes. “Hence, there continues to be a lack of trained dementia professionals,” says Ms. Patil.
Initial hurdles
For the first year, she tried to raise awareness by visiting educational institutions. In 2013, she approached UnLtd India, which provided her financial support of Rs. 5 lakh for three years. With this and her savings of Rs. 4 lakh, Ms. Patil began a full-fledged programme at her office in Bandra.
Finding resources interested in providing geriatric care wasn’t easy. She hired three full-time psychologists and two part-time care providers. The first few months were spent in training them in person-centred dementia care. “As each individual is unique in the presentation of their symptoms, it is essential to conduct a detailed assessment based on which customised care plan is prepared by the EHA,” says Shamal Jaykar (22), a dementia care specialist.
The next hurdle was to convince people of the need for a trained care companion. Moreover, as dementia is not covered under insurance, it becomes a costly affair for the family, says Ms. Pimpale, who had to revise her charges several times and brought these down from the earlier ₹950 to ₹650 per visit.
Care companion
EHA’s care companions provide home-based care through stimulating, engaging activities as per the customised plan, which includes sessions in art, music or reminiscence therapies with the patients, and family members get monthly email reports. “A minimum of eight sessions need to be taken,” says Ms. Pimpale. The care companion accompanies the patient on walks, short outings and in some special cases, like absence of family carers due to emergencies, provides help in managing tasks like shopping, pharmacy visits, bill payments and hospital visits. EHA provides home care facilities to 10 families from Andheri to Breach Candy.
Counselling, training
EHA, in collaboration with Holy Family Hospital, Bandra, offers free group counselling sessions to family members at the hospital to give them a clear sense of what the future could be like for the patient. They offer caregiving tips and techniques, and explain how to manage the patient’s anxieties. Caregivers are also given tips on managing their stress levels and eating healthy.
EHA also conducts trainings for professionals — para-medicals, nurses, doctors in hospitals. For a two-day certificate training programme, EHA charges ₹25,000 for a batch of 25-30 people. So far, they have trained around 1,300 nurses and matrons. EHA has also partnered with Dhavale Hospital in Palghar district to deliver Tata Institute of Social Sciences’ six-month certificate training programme.
In the next three years, EHA plans to train 2,000 caregivers and geriatric professionals through their dementia champion programme. They are also looking at a collaboration with home-care agencies, care facilities and NGOs in the elder care sector.
Neha Doshi, a Breach Candy resident, has been using EHA’s servcies for her 89-year-old mother-in-law for the past three years. “My mother-in-law is suffering from Alzheimer’s and is bedridden. EHA’s therapists have been coming every day for the past three years and we notice a remarkable change in her attitude during her one-hour therapy session. The brain-stimulating activities help her immensely; she happily narrates past incidents and loves to read newspapers along with them,” she says.
Echoing Healthy Ageing
Founder: Amrita Patil Pimpale
Funding: Self; UnLtd. India
Founded: 2013
Employees: 5