Dehydration is especially common amongst the elderly, especially those with dementia, as they often forget to drink. In fact, 37% of older people admitted to hospitals are acutely dehydrated.
Jelly Drops are tasty, sugar-free water sweets, made up of 95% water and electrolytes. They were developed by 26-year-old inventor, Lewis Hornby, in response to his late Grandma Pat’s struggle with dehydration due to dementia, for which she was admitted into the hospital. After gaining valuable insights from a month of living in his grandma’s care home, Lewis worked with doctors, dieticians and speech and language therapists to come up with the concept.
“The initial response to the product has been fantastic – we are very excited to supply the 50,000 people on our waiting list. We have seen a huge demand from both care homes and the families of people with dementia. It’s incredible to know that we can help those living with dementia and give comfort to their families and loved ones. It’s been heartwarming to hear the feedback from our first customers; they enjoy Jelly Drops as much as Grandma did.” – Lewis Hornby, Inventor of Jelly Drops
Jelly Drops is supported with a £100K R&D investment from the Alzheimer’s Society as part of its new Innovation Accelerator Program amongst other investors. In return, the company will donate 1% of its profits to the charity.
After 18 months of development and several months of beta testing during COVID-19, the product officially launches to the UK market today. During this phase, Jelly Drops has been working with a number of care homes across the UK to test the innovative product.