Today, around 80 000 Norwegians are diagnosed with dementia, and the number will likely double by the year 2040. Cognitive impairment and dementia contribute to extensive use of health and care services and will constitute an increasing societal challenge in the coming years. Society and policy makers are facing many tough decisions, and sometimes conflicting needs, when developing policies for an ageing society. Accurately predicting the outcomes of these decisions can be very difficult.
Dementia care in 2035. Final report from a scenario project
Therefore, scenarios can be a good method for exploring the manoeuvring room and identify the important questions that must be addressed. Firstly, the Norwegian Board of Technology developed three scenarios for how Norwegian dementia care can look in 2035. At the workshop, the reference group for the Assisted Living-project discussed both small and grand developing traits likely to affect future dementia care. Then, an expert group was formed to continue working with the inputs from the workshop. The developing traits that were considered most likely were used as a starting point for designing the scenarios.
Scenario workshop with a variety of stakeholders
We gathered resource persons from the health and care sector, the business sector, academia and various interest organisations to discuss the scenarios and field visions and suggestions for policy recommendations.
Facilitating for the involvement of a wide range of relevant stakeholders contributes to a nuanced discussion where more groups than merely the regular experts are represented. Such qualitative methods do not provide concrete answers, but the discussions can be a good indicator of the attitudes toward possible alternative choices of action.
The scenario workshop aimed to identify opportunities and dilemmas we may face in the future. Following the discussions, the participants formed groups and formulated suggestions for actions to the policy makers.
Background and funding
The scenarios «Dementia care in 2035” are part of the Assisted Living-project (ALP). ALP is a four-year research and development project, led by OsloMet – Metropolitan University, which aims to promote responsible research and innovation in the field of assistive technology.
The project is funded by the Research Council of Norway, under the SAMANSVAR-program in collaboration with the ICTPLUSS-program.
