CALMS

About

Health systems in low- and middle-income (LMIC) countries are ill-equipped to address the challenges posed by the rapidly changing aging population and associated chronic diseases. In the case of Peru, dementia presents multiple challenges to the country's health system. The lack of social care infrastructure means that care is largely provided by overburdened family members. A major issue is that dementia and its comorbidities are difficult to diagnose in individuals living in remote areas or with limited formal education.

The project aims to strengthen the health system in Peru to meet the challenges highlighted by dementia. To achieve this, technology and trained community health workers will be employed to bring expert diagnosis, treatment, and support to the homes of patients and carers. Patients, carers, healthcare workers, not-for-profit organizations, academics, and policymakers are collaboratively designing the research to ensure maximum impact for PWD in Peru and beyond.

The Imperial Team is co-designing responsible technology, such as a dementia screening tool and an intervention to support informal carers with the rural communities of Peru across four distinct regions of Peru, which include the capital city (Lima), a coastal semi-urban region (Tumbes), the Andes mountains (Huancayo), and the Amazon jungle (Nauta). All the stakeholders were engaged through iterative, culturally sensitive design approaches that include ethnography, interviews, and workshops.