The elderly people in Bulgaria are the fastest growing group of the population in Bulgaria. In the same time, they are also the poorest people in the poorest country in the European Union. The greatest challenge we faced during the realization of the training on the eLilly project was to find elderly people who have tablets and smartphones, in order to go through the training.
First, we introduced 65 professionals to the project – social workers, caregivers, nurses and psychologists, who work in two dementia care homes in two towns in the country – Slavyanovo and Bankya. We also presented the benefits of the project in front of the Mutual support group of the families – the Alzheimer café, which is organized by the team of the Alzheimer Bulgaria Association.
Noteworthy, we formed 5 groups with 3 people over 65 in each one (two of whom dementia patients), who were trained “face to face” on how to use tablets and smartphones and how to
search for health-related information on the Internet. Noteworthy, 15 people over the age of 65 years – two of whom dementia patients – were trained on how to use smartphones and tablets to search for health-related information on the internet.