The virtual Volunteer Service Award Presentation Ceremony cum Exchange Session hosted by the Tuen Mun District Coordinating Committee on Promotion of Volunteer Service has been completed successfully on 9 July 2021! This ceremony has served multiple functions in recognizing volunteers’ effort, providing a platform for exchange of volunteer experience and encouraging continuous support for volunteer service development. It is exciting that the volunteer training programme supporting dementia patients and carers co-organised by the LU Gerontechnology and Smart Ageing (GTSA) Project, and Tuen Mun Hospital, has been recognised as the best project for responding community needs.
During the challenging time of COVID-19, anti-pandemic measures and social distancing policies have cast adverse impacts on dementia patients as well as their carers. Without sufficient social and cognitive stimulation, patients’ condition often goes worse. Being confined at home for an extended period of time may even bring the relationship between dementia patients and family members into tests. Aiming to provide support and maintain the quality of life of dementia patients and their carers, the Dementia Volunteer Training Programme was thus established. The programme has trained up over 20 older volunteers in about four-months’ time and the total service hour has reached 300. Upon completion of training, volunteers have served 190 dementia patients and carers, and provided them with anti-pandemic materials as well as latest information on dementia, gerontechnology and health in general via phone calls. In addition, volunteers cared about the emotional health of the service users. A lot of carers expressed that they felt much better after talking to our volunteers. The gerontech product that we introduced can also ease their burden in caring the patients.
Throughout the whole programme, we have gathered the expertise of volunteers from both Lingnan University and Tuen Mun Hospital. With our concerted effort, quality of life and conditions of dementia patients and carers were able to get improved. In essence, this programme helps prove that cross-sectoral collaboration between medical, education and social sectors and patients can go far beyond “one plus one equals two”. In the near future, both Lingnan University and Tuen Mun Hospital aims to regularise this volunteer training programme, hoping to provide service to dementia patients and carers in a wider and more comprehensive scope.
Volunteer sharing video (in Chinese only): https://smartageing.ln.edu.hk/html/elearning_detail.php?id=108
