Kalina Ekova
Alzheimer Bulgaria held a co-creation workshop in the end of February in one nursing home in Sofia, Bulgaria. The aim of the workshop was to validate the cases of the game that were developed by Alzheimer Bulgaria.
Twelve older people attended and were asked to give their opinion on the cases in the health sphere. For the participants the co-creation workshop had many positive effects as it made them feel special and that their thoughts and views matter. Moreover, they had the opportunity to spend some quality time together sharing their pieces of experience.
Irina Ilieva and Kalina Ekova presented the two cases in front of the participants and had a friendly discussion with them. Listening to the cases, the older people acknowledged themselves in the situations. At least a few of them had the same pieces of experience as the ones described in the cases.
They only made some minor comments connected to the used language in Bulgarian. For example, there is no officially recognized word “ageism” so what is closer to them is “age discrimination”. Throughout the workshop many of them told us about different situations in the health sphere when they felt discriminated or frustrated by the lack of empathy and adequate health care.
The co-creation workshop helped a lot as it gave a direct feedback from the older people on the cases and once again reconfirmed the fact that there is a need for better attitude and care towards older people. All comments were taken into account when editing the cases.