MentHA Project - Improving the Mental Health of Older People

MentHA - Mental Health and Aging is a collaborative and innovative initiative that has been working over the past few years to improve the well-being and quality of life of adults with chronic mental illness and their caregivers (both formal and informal), in various contexts across Portuguese territory. Its premise aligns with national policies and the guidelines of the World Health Organization and the European Union directed at the mental health of older people.

Maintaining a person-centred approach, the MentHA DIGITAL project was recently developed by researchers from the Institute of Social Service (ICS) and the Department of Computer Engineering and Information Systems (DEISI) at Lusófona University, in partnership with the Portuguese Red Cross School of Health and leading institutions that support the population with mental illness or disability: CRINABEL, GIRA (Group for Active Intervention and Rehabilitation), ADEB (Association for the Support of Depressive and Bipolar Patients), ASMAL (Algarve Mental Health Association), and APDP (Diabetic Patients Protection Association of Portugal).

This extraordinary collaboration, supported financially by the Directorate-General for Health, the Portuguese Society of Atherosclerosis, and Roche - Diagnostics Systems, enabled the development of a set of technologically innovative solutions in the area of health and digital transformation. Over the past year, another milestone was achieved with a new software application for calculating cardiovascular risk and diabetes risk, implemented using "point of care" equipment (devices/reagents for measuring lipid profile and glycated hemoglobin) and nursing professionals who ensured capillary blood collection and blood pressure measurement.

The latest edition of MentHA DIGITAL was held on April 16 and 19 at the CRINABEL institution, a cooperative with public utility status and non-profit created to support the rehabilitation of young people and adults with developmental delays.

Video (Coverage)
Carolina Cebanu and Catarina Castanheira

Video (Editing)
Nelson Barradas