Technology Development for Dementia Intervention

The ASTRID Project, ENABLE Project and Alzheimer’s Association Everyday Technologies for Alzheimer Care (ETAC) are some of the recent projects made possible by technology, to meet the needs of people with dementia.

Technology offers excellent prospects for people with dementia to maintain their independence and maximize their retained abilities for as long as possible. This includes both practical solutions to managing the activities of everyday life as well as interventions geared to meeting psychological needs.

Presently, the developments in dementia are focused on meeting needs in three broad areas: safety, security and social interaction.

Safety Needs: The use of tracking and surveillance equipment has been the most controversial application of technology in dementia care. The use of such technologies is increasing. Global positioning systems are a good example of tracking devices for people with dementia and other cognitive impairments. Electronic tagging is being used as an alternative to locked doors and medication. According to one school of thought - tagging reduces caregiver stress and increases the freedom of people with dementia, whereas some feel that this comes at the expense of the personhood of people with dementia. Before taking any decision to use this technology, careful cost-benefit analysis is required not only for caregivers but also for how it meets the needs of people with dementia.

Security Needs: Due to the impact of dementia on memory, affected people want to stay in their own homes. Many thoughts have been focused on developing technology to respond to specific problems relating to everyday activities with the aim of helping people enjoy the security of their own homes for as long as possible. The ASTRID Project produced a guide to technology. Whereas, the ENABLE Project, set out to actually ask people with dementia in five countries to evaluate a range of devices.

Practical issues such as locating lost items in the home were addressed by this project. Five items were tested: day and night calendar, do-it-yourself picture gramophone, locator for lost objects, automatic bedroom light,and programmable telephone with photographs instead of numbers. In a second project, Dementia Voice investigated a further selection of low-key interventions for people with dementia in their own homes, including a door alarm, medication reminder and memory jogger. The outcome of the project suggested that people with dementia and their family caregivers were able to adapt to all of the devices and found them helpful.

Psychosocial Needs: Dementia affected people find it difficult to participate in social interactions, they can’t keep a track of conversations and other social activities. However, computer technology offers the potential to circumvent the short-term memory problems and access these longer-term stores to provide people with increased opportunities for interaction and meaningful activity. The CIRCA and Storytable projects are a great example. The CIRCA project is an interactive multimedia system, using a touch-screen interface and hypermedia links, designed to promote communication between people with dementia and caregivers. Storytable was developed to stimulate the memories of people with dementia and capture an oral history through the recording of their stories. Storytable is a specially constructed table equipped with two large buttons and three screens around which up to six people can sit. It’s Never 2 Late (IN2L) is a commercial product developed that is now being applied to dementia care environments.

Technology is consistently being developed to meet the needs of people with dementia.

Source: Psychiatric Times