Creation of a LEAP (Lived Experience Advisory Panel) Comprised of Caregivers

The IMPACT SALUD project, as part of its objective to strengthen the health systems of Peru and Latin America, using dementia as an indicator of their readiness to provide adequate health services, has seen the need to create a Caregiver Advisory Panel for the project. This Advisory Panel also called “Lived Experience Advisory Panels (LEAPs)” is made up of caregivers of people with some type of dementia. The main objective of LEAP is to create work and co-design spaces to exchange ideas and better understand the needs and facilitate the construction of proposals, measures and/or tools that can contribute to improving the quality of life of people with some kind of disability. type of dementia, as well as that of the caregivers themselves.

The first panel took place on Saturday, October 5 at the facilities of the Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia, Miraflores headquarters. Five caregivers were invited to participate and share their experiences in this first LEAP meeting.

This first session resulted in the formation of a large work team that defined and respected the general objectives of the workshop and designed its work guidelines.

For each LEAP meeting, the following objectives have been set:

1. First LEAP meeting:
   Presentation and definition of LEAP objectives. Team formation.
2. Second LEAP meeting:
   Identification of the main needs and challenges of caregivers.
3. Third LEAP meeting:
   Development of proposals and tools.
4. Fourth LEAP meeting:
   Closing, evaluation and planning of next steps.

 The next LEAP meetings will take place in November and December.