Issues in developing multilingual graphics-based digital caregiver guides for dementia care

Abstract

To increase the opportunity to educate caregivers for persons with dementia, particularly the nearly 40% of migrant healthcare workers emigrating to the US, we have chosen an adaptation of graphic medicine as a means of presenting these workers with conversations about dementia care in two formats of ‘mini-comics’: photo-based and cartoon. Graphic medicine, a part of narrative medicine, uses or creates comics to explore medical issues which have often been experienced by their authors. Each full set of caregiver guides comprises twenty short, mediated dialogues between caregivers about frequently occurring issues in early and mid-stage dementia communications. These are sets of vignettes involving actions, activities and artifacts that suggest a range of relationships. This study first provides a brief background to current and increasingly popular graphic medicine practices and their implementation into digital discourses and then examines in more detail our efforts to develop materials for multilingual direct care workers in the US, including current assessments of their impact in helping family and professional caregivers to communicate with their care recipients, the people living with dementia.