Dementia assistance cards

Guest article by Caron Sprake of "Caron Cares" - Advice and information for anyone caring for the elderly.

"A few months ago a message was posted on Facebook asking whether anyone could make a card to help people with dementia . Several people responded, offering to make a standardised card such as the business cards available from Vista Print.

I had bigger plans. This idea was not new or unique but was something I had considered when I started blogging 3 years ago. Blogging is a friendly pastime and we chat online with like minded people. I had been following another eldercare blog called “When they get Older” who have a free to download PDF “in case of emergency card”.

I contacted them in 2013 and suggested working together to make one that could be edited on line but nothing came of it as none of us had the tech skills to do this. 

I had stumbled upon an In Case of Emergency card (ICE) that could be edited online and downloaded free. I tracked down the creator of the card asked him if he would work with me to create the Dementia Assistance Card. After he had looked into my work and realised I was a genuine person he agreed.

I am a home help and blogger in Devon and my programmer Dima Tsvetkov is in Finland. We have only emailed or messaged on Facebook but the journey has been fun,exciting and very genuine for both of us. I created the basic prototype for the card using Canva and Dima reproducing it with code. The card is fully editable and also available as a blank. It is also available in 11 languages with new ones being added by translators, free of charge, daily.

This truly is an amazing project to be involved with. After a week the card was ready to be launched and the marketing began. Twitter, twitter and more twitter and some Facebook for good measure and the card started to be downloaded. Now we have had nearly 3,000 downloads of the Dementia assistance card and the matching Carers card which is also free.

(I have since removed “My name is” because I felt this was fairly obvious to anyone being asked for help.
If laminated they can be made into key rings, handbag fobs etc. They can also be discreetly kept in pockets and some people use a lanyard. It is personal taste."

The Dementia Assistance cards are available here FREE and fully editable.