International Longevity Centre - UK Age UK Lancashire Age UK Lancashire helps to provide the Help Direct service, offering all adults in Lancashire the information and support they need to get the most out of life. Click on the link below to go to the Help Direct website. South West Forum on Ageing Shaw Trust Care4Care Sus-IT A New Dynamics of Ageing Project Independence Matters | Our work Launched in May 2012, Independence Matters was a Design Challenge run with in partnership with Technology Strategy Board to develop inspiring services that promote independence in later life. The problem As we grow older, we can experience changes that diminish our ability to exercise choice and control. We may experience changes in our physical and mental abilities, or life changes such as retirement and bereavement. In later life, we rely on services that help us to navigate these changes, stay independent and live our lives the way we want to. The Independence Matters Design Challenge was inspired by this opportunity for business and social innovation. The insight As we age, loneliness becomes a significant issue for many and raises the question of how to enable people to live well in their own homes while remaining connected to their community. Our response The results The Design Challenge supported the development of seven innovative services for older people:
Living well with Dementia | Design Council Challenges Launched in 2011, Living Well with Dementia was a Design Challenge run in partnership with the Department of Health, to improve the lives of those affected by dementia. The problem More than 800,000 people in the UK are living with dementia, with numbers expected to rise to 1.7 million by 2051. The insight We felt we could use the Design Challenge process to turn the rising costs associated with dementia in an ageing population into an opportunity for positive change and innovation. Our response We launched a 12 month Design Challenge in partnership with Department of Health, the aim: to design and develop products and services that rethink living with dementia, and launch them as real initiatives. The concepts are focused on and around the point of diagnosis, aiming to be preventative measures that improve quality of life in the early stages of dementia for the increasing numbers of people diagnosed. The results
The Nominet Trust £250k Challenge The Nominet Trust £250k Challenge support projects that address the recommendations set out in our second State of the Art Review: ‘The internet and an ageing population’, written by Prof Christine Milligan and Dr Don Passey. In particular, we're looking to invest in projects that work with older people (65+) to: use the internet to address specific social problems facing older people; design new and better ways for older people to access and use the internet; and develop and use technologies familiar to older people that may have internet functionality such as projects that use IPTV or internet radio. Geraldine Bedell, editor of Gransnet tells us why they are supporting this challenge: "As the fastest-growing group of digital and social media users, older people can build on their own online experience to provide better services to people of their own age. Do you have a project that meets this challenge? The deadline for first stage applications is 1st February 2012.