suffer a ictus In Spain it is becoming less and less rare, since it is estimated that 1 in 6 people will have one throughout their lives, and the forecast is that this statistic will increase. What is not so common is having a stroke under the age of 50, as they only represent 16% of total cases. Even less common is that it happens to you, like Diana Ariasbefore 30. If applicable It was when I was 23 years old.due to a congenital defect that had gone unnoticed until then.
After the stroke, his life was turned upside down and he began a long period of rehabilitation from which, almost unintentionally, an idea arose to which he has dedicated his life ever since. This is Decedario, a therapeutic game for children and adults with brain damage and other neurological disorders.
The project has been growing over the years, currently it has online monitoring for families and its next goal is to cross borders and become Decedario GYMa platform powered by artificial intelligence, a step that will be able to take thanks to the award eAwards Spain, by NTT DATA FOUNDATION that you just received.
Congratulations on the eAwards Spain award from NTT DATA FOUNDATION. What will it mean for your project?It represents a total turning point in the project because it gives us the possibility of taking a leap at an international level and developing Decedario GYM, which is what we are looking for. We are already in Latin America, but we need to consolidate it and even other languages. And this, thanks to the technology we are developing, can be done in a more efficient way, which is why we want to enhance the digital platform.
What does this GYM Decedario consist of?We are developing a new program that we have called Decedario Gym, an innovative cognitive gym for people with disabilities where we combine advanced technology and family participation to train all the muscles of the brain from home.
This program has, on the one hand, the classic board game, with hundreds of cognitive activities based on scientific evidence, and we also want to offer this platform powered by artificial intelligence that includes a community for families, information, the possibility of hiring a ‘personal trainer’ and continuous monitoring through a brain activity headband.
When do you think this most innovative part will be ready?The idea is to start developing this new technology in 2025 and launch it at the end of the year or at the beginning of 2026. Right now, in addition to having the physical game, we track families in digital format. The physical game will be there now and later, it will not be exclusive, because the physical part also generates many benefits at the level of rehabilitation and even interpersonal relationships, because we involve the family in the entire process, we do not only focus on the patient . Once we develop this project, the platform I told you about will be added to this.
Who will it be directed to? Does it have the same ‘target audience’ as the original Decedario?Yes, and it is not only for people with strokes, because as it arose from me having a stroke, many people think that it is only for people with acquired brain damage, but it is for children and adults with other pathologies or different disorders, from, Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, autismADHD, dyslexia…
During these years, what feedback have you received from people who already use Decedario, both the game and the online monitoring?The feedback has always been very positive. In fact, whenever we do surveys, the grades that families give us are very high, with a measurement of 9.6. And it is a great satisfaction, because our objective is to promote the well-being of these people and their families.
And the therapists do the same, because they always point out that Decedario takes a lot of work away from them. Often they are the ones who have to make the material, resort to generics and adapt them… and that takes a lot of time. With Decedario they have everything in a little box, because, in addition, from the first version until now we have improved a lot and we have brought it to the home with a game methodology, which is where rehabilitation is truly strengthened and the work with therapists is complemented. .
It took them so many days to diagnose me that I am here by a miracle, and with more consequences than I should have for having been diagnosed so late.
Decedario arose as a result of having a stroke, when he was only 23 years old. Tell us what happened, how you experienced it…Well, the problem is that I was diagnosed very late. On the one hand, because I had no idea what the symptoms of a stroke were and it took me a while to go to the doctor, when the ideal is to act within the first four hours. On the other hand, because the first diagnosis they gave me was wrong, they told me it was vertigo. They sent me home, and seeing that I couldn’t swallow or even breathe, I returned, and it still took them another day to do a CT scan. It took them so many days to diagnose me that I am here by a miracle, and with more consequences than I should have for having been diagnosed so late.
What were you doing when it happened? I understand that your life would take a turn…Completely. To begin with, when they told me it was a shock, it seemed like I was in a video game, my brain was not able to understand the magnitude of the problem. I asked for a second opinion and they told me that the stroke had occurred so young due to a congenital malformation, so I had to have surgery. After the operation, I was a different person and was totally dependent. I had to leave university, go back to live with my parents… and all of that affects a lot in the most psychological part, in self-esteem…
I understand that then rehabilitation began…Yes, and the truth is that after six months I had achieved a very important improvement because I put a lot of effort into it, I was very young… a year later, I returned to university, where I studied graphic design, but this experience had already changed me forever .
And it led you to create Decedario…Yes, because this experience, as I told you, made me see life in a different way, and I decided to combine my personal part, the experience I had lived, with my professional part. This is how I began to design a project with which I could help improve the quality of life of people who had gone through the same thing as me, because I saw so many problems in the process I experienced, that I decided to start investigating to see if it was capable of creating something that would improve it. With the help of the Valencia Acquired Brain Injury Association, a neurorehabilitation team and patients, we spent a year creating the entire Decedario methodology.
A year after my stroke, I returned to university, where I was studying graphic design, but this experience had already changed me forever.
Did you realize then that cognitive rehabilitation tools were missing?
More than me realizing it, it was the professionals who told me what was missing, because, as they knew what I was studying, they often told me phrases like ‘I wish this material were like that’, because they, as I mentioned before, used generic materials. that they had to adapt to the needs of their patients, and they had many deficits in terms of usability, design, clarity… I started thinking about it before finishing my degree, in fact, it was my final year project and they gave me the best grade. promotion, they appreciated it very well and even gave me two prizes. As I was publishing everything I did on social networks, a lot of people wrote to me asking where they could buy the material, so it occurred to me that I could do crowdfunding to produce it and I got more than 200 people to support me, we launched it and until now. I have been taking baby steps and now, that we have won the NTT DATA FOUNDATION award, we want to take the next step with the platform that I have told you about.
You belong to the 2% of women entrepreneurs with disabilities in Spain. Is it more difficult to start a business when you have a disability?
The reality is that it is 1.9%, that is, there are only 1.9% of female entrepreneurs with disabilities. There are 34.8% of self-employed women without disabilities, and 63.3% of men. Indeed, it is more difficult to start a business, both because you have a disability and because you are a woman, it is like a triple difficulty. To be a woman, you have to add the limitations and difficulties that disability imposes on you, which, in many cases, like mine, are also invisible. In my daily life I have certain limitations that I have to play with at all times and then, as happens to most women, we have to prove twice as much that we are capable of undertaking and achieving what we set out to do.
What would you recommend to a person with a disability who wants to do it?You would tell them that having a disability does not mean that we have less entrepreneurial capabilities than a person who does not have a disability, because each person has different abilities. I think the term intersectionality defines it very well, because we all have different conditions: economic, social, cultural… that influence us, but I don’t think those labels have to condition or limit us, nor does the label of ‘person with a disability’. That’s why I always like to make my case visible, to empower other women with disabilities who want to start a business. I would say to them that, if they have a good idea, they should go for it and not let the fact of having a disability limit them.
Finally, what message would you like to send on stroke day?First of all, raise awareness about the problem, because society is not fully aware. Stroke is one of the leading causes of death in women, and the leading cause of disability, and it is not given the importance and visibility it deserves. It is estimated that, right now, one in six people will have a stroke in their lifetime, and the outlook for the future is much worse due to the lifestyle we lead.
The good news is that it could be prevented in 90% of cases with a healthy lifestyle that we should all lead and do not lead. Well, I already do, because life took care of explaining it to me, hahaha. The impact that this pathology has on people and their families is tremendous. In many cases you stop having friends, relationships, they have to leave jobs to be caregivers…
On the other hand, I would like to call for all agents in the system, both the public administration, private entities, companies, entrepreneurs… to join together and create an interconnected fabric where we can all listen to each other. And so, together, let’s build things bigger than ourselves, let’s leave our ego aside to create things that transcend us and improve society. Each of us alone cannot do it.
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