In 2021 Alzheimer Bulgaria launches an Erasmus+ project “3D4elderly”. The project aims to create innovative learning pathways that increase the quality of the work of caregivers and staff members dealing with people with Alzheimer and elderly people with dementia and also to raise the quality of life of people with dementia by using 3D technology.

The project introduces an innovative approach to tackle one of the first symptoms of a person with Alzheimer’s: short-term memory loss. Some research states that it is possible, in the early stages of Alzheimer’s, to recover lost memories by stimulating specific hippocampal neurons, the area of the brain responsible for recording short-term memories.

For this reason, people with Alzheimer’s need cognitive stimulation exercises that activate memories, language, perceptions, reasoning, creativity, sociability and above all well-being. The use of 3D printing will help these people by offering them a multisensory experience thanks to the tools created.

The project team is composed by 4 partners from 4 different European countries (Italy, Spain, Bulgaria and Lithuania) and with various profiles: 3D printing experts (CEIPES and CETEM) close to the academic and business sector, and non-governmental voluntary organizations working in the interest of the community – BETI a Research Institute, working in the field of ICT and education technologies with target groups composed of adults, and Alzheimer Bulgaria, the partner who works with people with Alzheimer’s and dementia, responsible to introduce and implement the innovation 3D printing methods to them and their caregivers.

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