Brain+ has started testing the integration of the CST-Assistant with the formal Danish education of new Cognitive Stimulation Therapy (CST)-therapists. Only trained therapists can deliver CST in accordance with the certified CST manual from the University College of London (UCL) to provide the evidenced benefits of the method to people with dementia. The integrated education is tested as part of the DKK 3.5 million CO-PI granted project for the implementation and scaling of the CST-Assistant for better dementia management in Denmark, serving also to shape the product and offering for other markets, in particular the UK. The first Danish education days based on the new integrated CST-education program have been conducted in the Odense and Fredericia municipalities with very positive feedback.  

The objective of the new CST-education is to introduce new CST therapists to the CST-Assistant and include hands-on user practice to deliver CST based on the product. The intention is to make it easier for newly educated CST therapists to start delivering CST to people with dementia after having received the education.  

Simon Nielsen, Chief Innovation Officer at Brain+ commented:  
“Integrating the CST-Assistant with the formal CST education will introduce our product and its offerings to newly educated CST therapists upfront as an important milestone for broader customer reach. It is also an important step towards building a full service offering of our services that will strengthen Brain+’ position as a preferred supplier of evidence-based CST as a service (aaS) to health care systems.”  

The new combined CST-education has been co-developed by Brain+ and Annette Johannesen, who is a highly experienced and certified CST Trainer of Trainers from UCL, where CST was invented. Annette Johannesen has also co-authored the Danish CST manual and helped bring CST to Denmark. The development of the new CST education has been informed by learnings and output from the successful Danish Usability Study, conducted with the CST-Assistant in Q4 ’23 – Q1’ 24 in collaboration with Professor Rikke Gregersen from VIA University College and 5 (five) municipalities, to test how the product can best support both experienced and new CST therapists. The newly trained CST therapists in the study clearly expressed a wish to have more of the education being spent on the CST-Assistant and practical training with the product. The wish was recognized by the CST experts and the community as important, and consequently the new CST education program allocates most of the time to the CST-Assistant. 

The feedback from both the CST therapists from Odense and Fredericia, who participated in the new CST-education, and from Annette Johannesen, who was responsible for education in basic CST principles, was very positive. The participants felt better equipped and highly comfortable delivering CST in practice upon their training based on the CST-Assistant. The combined CST-education will be tested with all participants in the CO-PI project, so with an additional four municipalities, the Danish Alzheimer’s Association and the DaneAge (Ældresagen) association.  

Towards improved customer reach and a more complete service offering 
The CST-Assistant significantly lowers barriers for new sites to start implementing the CST method into their dementia management practice, and for those already offering CST to scale their offering. The product provides readily available access to a large library of customizable CST content for each of the 14 sessions in the therapeutic program, which has been developed and validated together with world leading CST experts. Findings have shown that the CST-Assistant saves on average 50% of preparation time before a CST-session. A newly educated CST therapist can in addition save an estimated 20-40 hours of initial start-up preparation time for the first 1-3 CST group courses, they run.  

Because of the way the CST-Assistant enables CST delivery at scale, introducing the product at the point where new CST therapists are educated, is an important factor to broaden the implementation of CST practice more broadly. This is the view from several CST experts and CST Trainers of Trainers in both Denmark, the UK and Germany. In all three countries, and with primary focus on the UK, Brain+ is working with the CST community to enable the integration of the CST-Assistant into the official CST education programs.  
 

Contact Information 
CEO and Co-founder: Kim Baden-Kristensen, + 45 31393317 (SMS), kim@brain-plus.com

Brain+ mission: Become the preferred provider of certified health tech solutions for better dementia management, serving one million people affected by dementia by 2030.