scholarly journals State of the Art in Electronic Assistive Technologies for People with Dementia

2010 ◽  
pp. 23-35 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ricardo Castellot Lou ◽  
Angele Giuliano ◽  
Maurice D. Mulvenna
Keyword(s):  
State Of The Art ◽  
Assistive Technologies ◽  
People With Dementia

Involving people with dementia and their informal caregivers in the development process of assistive technology: Description and evaluation of a user-centered design (Preprint)

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Iris A.G.M. Geerts ◽  
Liselore J.A.E Snaphaan ◽  
Inge M.B. Bongers
Keyword(s):  
Focus Groups ◽  
Assistive Technology ◽  
Field Study ◽  
Development Process ◽  
Technology Development ◽  
Informal Caregivers ◽  
Assistive Technologies ◽  
User Centered Design ◽  
People With Dementia ◽  
User Centered

BACKGROUND Despite the potential value of assistive technology to support people with dementia (PWD) in everyday activities, use of these technologies is still limited. To ensure that assistive technologies better address the specific needs and daily context of PWD and their informal caregivers, it is particularly important to involve them in all different phases of assistive technology development. The literature rarely describes the involvement of PWD throughout the development process of assistive technologies, which makes it difficult to further reflect on and improve active involvement of PWD. OBJECTIVE This two-part study aimed to gather insights on the user-centered design (UCD) applied in the development process of the alpha prototype of the serious game PLAYTIME by describing the methods and procedures of the UCD as well as evaluating the UCD from the perspective of all involved stakeholders. METHODS The first three phases of the user-driven Living Lab of Innovate Dementia 2.0 were applied to directly involve PWD and their informal caregivers through qualitative research methods, including focus groups and a context-field study, in the development of the alpha prototype of PLAYTIME from exploration to design to testing. After the testing phase, a total number of 18 semi-structured interviews were conducted with PWD, their informal caregivers and the project members of PLAYTIME to evaluate the applied UCD from the perspective of all involved stakeholders. The interviews addressed five of the principles for successful UCD and the appropriateness of the different methods used in the focus groups and context-field study. RESULTS Results of the interviews focused, amongst others, on the level of involvement of PWD and their informal caregivers in the development process, the input provided by PWD and their informal caregivers, the value of early prototyping, continuous iterations of design solutions and in-context testing, the role of dementia care professionals in the multidisciplinary project team, and the appropriateness of open- and closed-ended questions for obtaining input from PWD and their informal caregivers. CONCLUSIONS The description and evaluation of the UCD applied in the development process of the alpha prototype of PLAYTIME resulted in several insights on the relevance of UCD for all involved stakeholders as well as how PWD can be involved in the subsequent phases of usable and meaningful assistive technology development.

scholarly journals Personalisation, customisation and bricolage: how people with dementia and their families make assistive technology work for them

2018 ◽  
Vol 39 (11) ◽  
pp. 2502-2519 ◽  
Author(s):  
Grant Gibson ◽  
Claire Dickinson ◽  
Katie Brittain ◽  
Louise Robinson
Keyword(s):  
Technology Use ◽  
Dementia Care ◽  
Assistive Technologies ◽  
Everyday Practice ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Manage Care ◽  
Age In Place ◽  
Care Services ◽  
People With Dementia ◽  
The Everyday

AbstractAssistive technologies (ATs) are being ‘mainstreamed’ within dementia care, where they are promoted as enabling people with dementia to age in place alongside delivering greater efficiencies in care. AT provision focuses upon standardised solutions, with little known about how ATs are used by people with dementia and their carers within everyday practice. This paper explores how people with dementia and carers use technologies in order to manage care. Findings are reported from qualitative semi-structured interviews with 13 people with dementia and 26 family carers. Readily available household technologies were used in conjunction with and instead of AT to address diverse needs, replicating AT functions when doing so. Successful technology use was characterised by ‘bricolage’ or the non-conventional use of tools or methods to address local needs. Carers drove AT use by engaging creatively with both assistive and everyday technologies, however, carers were not routinely supported in their creative engagements with technology by statutory health or social care services, making bricolage a potentially frustrating and wasteful process. Bricolage provides a useful framework to understand how technologies are used in the everyday practice of dementia care, and how technology use can be supported within care. Rather than implementing standardised AT solutions, AT services and AT design in future should focus on how technologies can support more personalised, adaptive forms of care.

State-of-the-Art Assistive Technology for People with Dementia

2013 ◽  
pp. 1606-1625
Author(s):  
Clifton Phua ◽  
Patrice Claude Roy ◽  
Hamdi Aloulou ◽  
Jit Biswas ◽  
Andrei Tolstikov ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Assistive Technology ◽  
State Of The Art ◽  
Smart Homes ◽  
The Elderly ◽  
Plan Recognition ◽  
Social Health ◽  
People With Dementia ◽  
Caregiver Needs ◽  
Remote Care

The work is motivated by the expanding demand and limited supply of long-term personal care for People with Dementia (PwD), and assistive technology as an alternative. Telecare allows PwD to live in the comfort of their homes for a longer time. It is challenging to have remote care in smart homes with ambient intelligence, using devices, networks, and activity and plan recognition. Our scope is limited to mostly related work on existing execution environments in smart homes, and activity and plan recognition algorithms which can be applied to PwD living in smart homes. PwD and caregiver needs are addressed in a more holistic healthcare approach, domain challenges include doctor validation and erroneous behaviour, and technical challenges include high maintenance and low accuracy. State-of-the-art devices, networks, activity and plan recognition for physical health are presented; ideas for developing mental training for mental health and social networking for social health are explored. There are two implications of this work: more needs to be done for assistive technology to improve PwD’s mental and social health, and assistive software is not highly accurate and persuasive yet. Our work applies not only to PwD, but also the elderly without dementia and people with intellectual disabilities.

Assistive Technologies for People with Dementia

2015 ◽  
pp. 269-289 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christos N. Xenakidis ◽  
Antonis M. Hadjiantonis ◽  
George M. Milis
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Decline ◽  
Mobile Applications ◽  
Basic Needs ◽  
Assistive Technologies ◽  
Smart Devices ◽  
Empirical Knowledge ◽  
Disease Symptoms ◽  
People With Dementia ◽  
Early Alzheimer’S Disease ◽  
Available Technology

This chapter focuses on the presentation and discussion of available assistive tools for people with dementia symptoms and cognitive decline, leading to the conclusion that these tools may, nowadays, will be replaced by mobile applications for smart devices. A functional mobile prototype assistive application for android platform devices like smartphones, tablets and smartwatches is presented, with features that offer support to the basic needs of caregivers and people with cognitive decline, giving more emphasis on people with early Alzheimer's disease symptoms. It is shown that, utilising the available technology, as well as existing literature and empirical knowledge, mobile applications may offer a serious alternative to currently available assistive tools, while also offering considerable functionality advantages.

Assistive Technologies and the Carers of People with Dementia

2016 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 45-59
Author(s):  
Sarmishtha Bhattacharyya ◽  
Susan Mary Benbow
Keyword(s):  
Quality Of Life ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Assistive Technologies ◽  
Narrative Review ◽  
People With Dementia ◽  
Technological Interventions ◽  
Informal Carers

Assistive technologies have a role in supporting both formal and informal carers of people with dementia, and in maintaining the independence, and quality of life of both people with dementia and their carers. The authors report a narrative review of the use of technological interventions to empower the carers of people with dementia, and relate this to a model of ageing well. They argue that this highlights the importance of empowering and connecting with carers in order to increase their participation and connection in the care of their relative/client; and conclude that both empowerment and connection contribute to maintaining autonomy and well-being of both carers and people with dementia. Technological interventions should not be used as alternatives to connection. The emphasis in practice should be on empowering and connecting with both carers and people with dementia.

Keeping In Touch Everyday (KITE) project: developing assistive technologies with people with dementia and their carers to promote independence

2009 ◽  
Vol 21 (03) ◽  
pp. 494 ◽  
Author(s):  
Louise Robinson ◽  
Katie Brittain ◽  
Stephen Lindsay ◽  
Dan Jackson ◽  
Patrick Olivier
Keyword(s):  
Assistive Technologies ◽  
People With Dementia

scholarly journals Technology-Assisted Home Care for People With Dementia and Their Relatives: Scoping Review (Preprint)

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah Palmdorf ◽  
Anna Lea Stark ◽  
Stephan Nadolny ◽  
Gerrit Eliaß ◽  
Christoph Karlheim ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Home Care ◽  
Scoping Review ◽  
Care Setting ◽  
Ambient Assisted Living ◽  
Case Series ◽  
Research Field ◽  
Small Sample ◽  
Assistive Technologies ◽  
The People ◽  
People With Dementia

BACKGROUND Assistive technologies for people with dementia and their relatives have the potential to ensure, improve, and facilitate home care and thereby enhance the health of the people caring or being cared for. The number and diversity of technologies and research have continuously increased over the past few decades. As a result, the research field has become complex. OBJECTIVE The goal of this scoping review was to provide an overview of the research on technology-assisted home care for people with dementia and their relatives in order to guide further research and technology development. METHODS A scoping review was conducted following a published framework and by searching 4 databases (MEDLINE, CINAHL, PsycInfo, and CENTRAL) for studies published between 2013 and 2018. We included qualitative and quantitative studies in English or German focusing on technologies that support people with dementia or their informal carers in the home care setting. Studies that targeted exclusively people with mild cognitive impairment, delirium, or health professionals were excluded as well as studies that solely consisted of assessments without implication for the people with dementia or their relatives and prototype developments. We mapped the research field regarding study design, study aim, setting, sample size, technology type, and technology aim, and we report relative and absolute frequencies. RESULTS From an initial 5328 records, we included 175 studies. We identified a variety of technology types including computers, telephones, smartphones, televisions, gaming consoles, monitoring devices, ambient assisted living, and robots. Assistive technologies were most commonly used by people with dementia (77/175, 44.0%), followed by relatives (68/175, 38.9%), and both target groups (30/175, 17.1%). Their most frequent goals were to enable or improve care, provide therapy, or positively influence symptoms of people with dementia (eg, disorientation). The greatest proportions of studies were case studies and case series (72/175, 41.1%) and randomized controlled trials (44/175, 25.1%). The majority of studies reported small sample sizes of between 1 and 50 participants (122/175, 69.7%). Furthermore, most of the studies analyzed the effectiveness (85/233, 36.5%) of the technology, while others targeted feasibility or usability or were explorative. CONCLUSIONS This review demonstrated the variety of technologies that support people with dementia and their relatives in the home care setting. Whereas this diversity provides the opportunity for needs-oriented technical solutions that fit individual care arrangements, it complicates the choice of the right technology. Therefore, research on the users’ informational needs is required. Moreover, there is a need for larger studies on the technologies’ effectiveness that could contribute to a higher acceptance and thus to a transition of technologies from research into the daily lives of people with dementia and their relatives.

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