Pioneering digitally enabled care for people living with dementia
This blog was originally published by Nursing in Practice.
Consultant nurse Jo James tells us about the benefits of the MinderCare project, testing a new way of supporting people living with dementia in the community.
When the idea of a digitally enabled model of care for people living with dementia was first broached, I was not sure where nursing would fit into it, and was certainly not convinced about how it could work as a nurse-led service.
In my years of dementia nursing, it has been all about hands on care: we focus on all the subtle ways a nurse can communicate without words – with a look, touch or through actions that support the person. Our patients are often older, and less able to manage modern technology such as mobile phones, which I believed was also a barrier.
Yet, I finish a call with one of my patients, a lovely gentleman in his 90s who has been living with dementia for five years – he’s finished updating me on the status of his chest and bowels – before asking politely if the data is showing anything? I suddenly I realise how wrong I have been. He is referring to data from our digital initiative MinderCare.
Delivering digitally enabled nursing care to people living with dementia is possible. It has the potential to improve lives and provide support on a much larger scale than ever before.
Living with dementia at home
The challenge of keeping people living with dementia in their own homes for as long as possible is well documented. They often have with high levels of frailty, frequent infections, falls and multiple co-morbidities. This results in hospital admissions and long lengths of stay when they do end up in hospital. Caregivers often lack support in the community, leading to high levels of stress and carer relationships can sometimes break down.
The at-home monitoring service MinderCare has been designed to provide continuous digitally enabled care to the person living with dementia and their caregiver if they have one. It is an integrated research and clinical programme that aims to test the scalability and efficacy of providing digitally enabled specialist care for people living with dementia in the community.
The service, based at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, incorporates monitoring technology developed in partnership with Imperial College London (sleep mats, movement sensors and door sensors) and uses AI algorithms to predict the risk of infections, monitor the quality of the person’s sleep and alert for external door use during the night. Alerts are reviewed daily by the nursing team.
Alongside this, the service provides clinical oversight from dementia nurses, who assess and monitor the patient and caregivers’ overall health and wellbeing. Patients or caregivers are also given a direct contact number for the nurses that they are free to use if they need to. Families can decide how much they want to be contacted, which can be anything from daily to every eight weeks.
The amount of support is based on what is happening in the person’s life at the time and this flexibility allows us to provide a truly person-centred approach to care.
MinderCare caregiver"Thank you so much for helping us. I am so happy now that we are getting help."
We are currently supporting 103 patients in west London: 45% of these patients live alone and are socially isolated. Over time we have built up a trust with our patients and their caregivers, who value our advice and support.
Person-centred care is enhanced
We support families with decision making, and we are a reassuring ear for a frustrated caregiver or an anxious mum whose son has gone away for a well-earned break. The ‘hands-on’ and person-centred part of dementia nursing that we believe is so key, has not gone away. It’s been enhanced by this service.
Since June 2025, the clinical team has responded to 77 alerts and undertaken 567 interventions ranging from advocating for our patients with other providers, arranging urgent assessments to counselling people who are simply overwhelmed by the situation they find themselves in.
Implementing the MinderCare project has shown me that we must not roll our eyes at the digital ambition in the NHS 10 Year Health Plan. It is an opportunity for significant growth that hugely benefits our patients.
As nurses, we should celebrate the possibilities it offers to deliver care and support that patients can access when they need it most.
