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Online activities of Alzheimer Cafes in the 6 months preceding and following the coronavirus outbreak

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2022-10-10
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Copyright (c) 2021 Metszetek

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

A CC BY licence alkalmazása előtt megjelent cikkek esetében (2020 előtt) továbbra is a CC BY-NC-ND licence az érvényes.

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Selected Style: APA
Kucsera, C., & Holpert, A. (2022). Online activities of Alzheimer Cafes in the 6 months preceding and following the coronavirus outbreak. CROSS-SECTIONS - Social Science Journal, 10(4), 42-64. https://doi.org/10.18392/metsz/2021/4/3
Abstract

Alzheimer Cafés may play an important psychosocial supporting role in the life of people living with dementia and of their family caregivers by providing a community of understanding, in­clusion, solidarity and mutual support. They can promote policy-, professional- and social dis­courses, the recognition of dementia as a social reality, and overall awareness of this complex challenge. They can also foster transdisciplinary collaboration among professionals as well as between professionals and lay people affected by dementia based on mutual understanding, cat­alysing the formation and operation of acting communities and networks of interest.

The active and purposeful presence and activities of Alzheimer Cafés on Internet platforms, in the increasingly prominent channels and fields of social discourse and community life in the 21st century, can be an important tool in the realization of these benefits.

This two-part paper analyses the publicly accessible online footprint and behaviour of Alz­heimer Cafés from this perspective as measured by a list of 10 possible functions. It scrutinizes the realisation of possible benefits and advantages offered by Internet platforms between Sep­tember 2019 and August 2020, with a special focus on technology-based adaptive responses to the coronavirus-outbreak midway through that period.

The first part of the paper (Kucsera – Holpert 2021) briefly overviewed the Alzheimer Café concept and its history in Hungary, presented the methodology of the study and the first half of the research results. This second part of the paper presents the rest of the results, and makes recommendations for making more effective use of the potential of online platforms to realise the goals.