Rekker Wins the In4Care Community Care Finding 2024 with innovative project for people with Parkinson’s.

Finding the right words to tell those around you that you are ill is often difficult, especially with a disease such as Parkinson’s. This neurological disorder not only affects the daily lives of people with Parkinson’s, but also raises challenges around communication with family, friends and colleagues. Yet that communication is essential.

This year, In4Care Community, in collaboration with the Flemish Parkinson’s League, launched Care Finding 2024, a call to find innovative projects that improve the care and quality of life of people with Parkinson’s and their caregivers. The winning project, Rekker, offers a creative solution to the communication problem many people with Parkinson’s struggle with.

Care finding 2024: call for innovation in Parkinson’s care

The In4Care Community Care Finding is an annual call from In4Care Community that rewards innovative care projects. This year’s focus was on Parkinson’s disease, a rapidly growing neurological disorder that is affecting more and more people worldwide. Together with the Flemish Parkinson’s League, In4Care Community issued a call for healthcare professionals and organizations to submit ideas and realizations that could improve care for people with Parkinson’s and their caregivers. All innovative ideas, prototypes or realized projects that contribute to better, more efficient and more humane care were welcome.

The call focused specifically on solutions created on the shop floor of healthcare organizations that enhance the quality of life for people with Parkinson’s and their loved ones. Consider ways to improve care practices or support communication between people with Parkinson’s, family caregivers and caregivers. The winning project will receive a prize of €10,000.00 to further develop the idea or make it more widely available.

From the 17 entries, an eight-member jury selected six finalists. These projects were presented in Leuven at the end of September, after which the final winner was announced on October 3 during the Happy Aging Day in Genk. The Rekker project emerged as the winner.

Rekker: personalized stories as a communication tool

Rekker, the winning project of Care Discovery 2024, is developing an app that helps people with Parkinson’s tell their stories through personalized narratives. Many people with Parkinson’s experience difficulty explaining their diagnosis to those around them, or making complex feelings and symptoms clear. Rekker provides a solution here by supporting people with Parkinson’s to communicate about their disease in a way that suits them.

This app allows people with Parkinson’s to create stories tailored to their personal situation, making it easier for them to explain what they are going through. This lowers the threshold for open communication and helps make Parkinson’s more discussable in family or work settings.

Greater openness and understanding thanks to Rekker

One of the major challenges with Parkinson’s is that the disease manifests differently in everyone and in some cases can go undetected for a long time. This makes it difficult for people with Parkinson’s to explain exactly what they are going through. Rekker responds to this challenge by helping people with Parkinson’s find the right words to tell their story. In this way, the project aims to contribute to greater understanding and support from the patient’s environment.

In addition, Rekker is helping to raise awareness about Parkinson’s in the community. Sharing personalized stories can help eliminate prejudice and misunderstandings about the disease. This not only makes communication easier for the patient, but also helps make Parkinson’s more discussable in wider social circles.

The €10 000 prize will allow Rekker to further develop their app and make it more widely accessible to people with Parkinson’s and their loved ones. The project is a promising step toward greater openness and understanding for people living with this disease.

The project call called Care Finding is an initiative of In4Care Community vzw. For the 6th edition of the Care Finding, In4Care Community vzw partnered with the Flemish Parkinson’s League.