Information and communication technology solutions for outdoor navigation in dementia

INTRODUCTION: Information and communication technology (ICT) is potentially mature enough to empower outdoor and social activities in dementia. However, actual ICT-based devices have limited functionality and impact, mainly limited to safety. What is an ideal operational framework to enhance this field to support outdoor and social activities? METHODS: Review of literature and cross-disciplinary expert discussion. RESULTS: A situation-aware ICT requires a flexible fine-tuning by stakeholders of system usability and complexity of function, and of user safety and autonomy. It should operate by artificial intelligence/machine learning and should reflect harmonized stakeholder values, social context, and user residual cognitive functions. ICT services should be proposed at the prodromal stage of dementia and should be carefully validated within the life space of users in terms of quality of life, social activities, and costs. DISCUSSION: The operational framework has the potential to produce ICT and services with high clinical impact but requires substantial investment

Assistive Technology for Independent Living with Dementia: Stylized Facts and Research Gaps

Background: Demographic change and continuously increasing spending on public health have intensified the public debate as well as deliberations on the development and deployment of new assistive technologies; particularly for dementia patients as it affects a large and increasing number of people, not only causing massive social distress, but also great economic losses. Recent advancement in assistive technologies (AT) have therefore fueled the debate on new, IT-reliant ways of providing cure and care of dementia. Still the impact on practice has been little. With this paper, we want to find out to which extent current studies have discussed the impacts of AT for dementia. Methods: We conduct a scoping review of the literature. We identified n=539 unique articles, out of which n=36 reported on impacts of AT use in the context of dementia. Based on this subset, we extracted a list of original statements, which was then further aggregated to 6 stylized facts. Results: The identified stylized facts describe common findings that can be observed in most studies reporting on IT-reliant assistive tools for dementia patients although applying different methods, focusing on different technologies, or working in different contexts. Conclusions: While the identified stylized facts indicate how much evidence behind certain common assumptions is, we additionally found that studies in the area of AT for dementia often neglect the socio-economic and ethical dimension. These are important research gaps for future work

A systematic review of electronic assistive technology within supporting living environments for people with dementia

Health and social care provision needs to change in order to meet the needs of an increase in the number of people living with dementia. Environmental design, technology and assistive devices have the potential to complement care, help address some of the challenges presented by this growing need and impact on the lived experience of this vulnerable population. This systematic review was undertaken to identify the research on the use of electronic assistive technology within long-term residential care settings. A total of 3229 papers published from the inception of each of the databases up until May 2016 were retrieved from searches in four major databases. Sixty-one were identified to be included in the review. The inclusion criteria were: original peer reviewed journals; an electronic assistive technology intervention; with residents or tenants living with dementia or their family or paid caregivers; in supported living environments or residential care. The data extracted from the included studies focused on the methodology, technology, outcomes and the role of people living with dementia within the research. Overall, an extensive variety of technical interventions were found, with a broad range of methodological heterogeneity to explore their effect. Additionally, wide-spanning outcomes to support the potential of technology solutions and the challenges presented by such intervention were found

HCI for health and wellbeing: challenges and opportunities

In terms of Human–Computer Interaction, healthcare presents paradoxes: on the one hand, there is substantial investment in innovative health technologies, particularly around “big data” analytics and personal health technologies; on the other hand, most interactive health technologies that are currently deployed at scale are difficult to use and few innovative technologies have achieved significant market penetration. We live in a time of change, with a shift from care being delivered by professionals towards people being expected to be actively engaged and involved in shared decision making. Technically, this shift is supported by novel health technologies and information resources; culturally, the pace of change varies across contexts. In this paper, I present a “space” of interactive health technologies, users and uses, and interdependencies between them. Based on a review of the past and present, I highlight opportunities for and challenges to the application of HCI methods in the design and deployment of digital health technologies. These include threats to privacy, patient trust and experience, and opportunities to deliver healthcare and empower people to manage their health and wellbeing in ways that better fit their lives and values

Usability evaluation of assistive technologies through qualitative research focusing on people with mild dementia

The assistive technologies (ATs) are commonly used for the wellbeing of people with dementia (PWD). Research shows that current ATs are not performing to their best and high rate of AT abandonment still exist. Although empirical evaluations greatly impact AT success, yet only few studies investigated AT usability for PWD. To the best of authors knowledge there is no AT usability evaluation study conducted in the South Asia. Therefore a qualitative study is carried out to identify which AT factors encourage and discourage the PWD through semi-structured interviews. Thematic analysis is used to generate themes and sub-themes. The (happy users, non-happy users and technology and human care) emerged as three main themes while, (communication, monitoring and reminders) as popular AT types. Most PWD use ATs for socialization and health monitoring. Overall the PWD appreciated the role of ATs in their lives, but showed concerns about interface efficacy, function simplicity and elderly requirements adaptation. The already met and unmet needs of the PWD are also investigated. The AT producers should make user interface simpler and tailor future ATs to the specific requirements of the PWD. The user centered techniques should be adopted for the development of new ATs

Literature review: the cost effectiveness of assistive technology in supporting people with dementia

Despite much emphasis on the potential of assistive technologies of many varieties to deliver cost effective ways of supporting people with dementia, and clear indications of this potential, rigorous cost-effectiveness studies of these technologies for this group remain largely absent. The review includes consideration of the indicative evidence. This report describes the process and results of the literature review. Extensive searches identified a large literature, of which 59 items were systematically reviewed and quality assessed.We are indebted to the Dementia Services Development Trust who funded the study as part of the work of the Dementia Services Development Centre in Northern Ireland. This work is supported by the Atlantic Philanthropies and the Northern Ireland DHSSPH

HawkEye – Deploying a Design Fiction Probe

Tis paper explores how a design fiction can be designed to be used as a pragmatic user-centred design method to generate insights on future technology use. We built HawkEye, a design fiction probe that embodies a future fiction of dementia care. To learn how participants respond to the probe, we employed it with eight participants for three weeks in their own homes as well as evaluating it with six HCI experts in sessions of 1.5h. In addition to presenting the probe in detail, we share insights into the process of building it and discussthe utility of design fiction as a tool to elicit empathetic and rich discussions about potential outcomes of future technologies

HawkEye – Deploying a Design Fiction Probe

This paper explores how a design fiction can be designed to be used as a pragmatic user-centred design method to generate insights on future technology use. We built HawkEye, a design fiction probe that embodies a future fiction of dementia care. To learn how participants respond to the probe, we employed it with eight participants for three weeks in their own homes as well as evaluating it with six HCI experts in sessions of 1.5h. In addition to presenting the probe in detail, we share insights into the process of building it and discuss the utility of design fiction as a tool to elicit empathetic and rich discussions about potential outcomes of future technologies

When technology cares for people with dementia:A critical review using neuropsychological rehabilitation as a conceptual framework

Clinicians and researchers have become increasingly interested in the potential of technology in assisting persons with dementia (PwD). However, several issues have emerged in relation to how studies have conceptualized who the main technology user is (PwD/carer), how technology is used (as compensatory, environment modification, monitoring or retraining tool), why it is used (i.e., what impairments and/or disabilities are supported) and what variables have been considered as relevant to support engagement with technology. In this review we adopted a Neuropsychological Rehabilitation perspective to analyse 253 studies reporting on technological solutions for PwD. We analysed purposes/uses, supported impairments and disabilities and how engagement was considered. Findings showed that the most frequent purposes of technology use were compensation and monitoring, supporting orientation, sequencing complex actions and memory impairments in a wide range of activities. The few studies that addressed the issue of engagement with technology considered how the ease of use, social appropriateness, level of personalization, dynamic adaptation and carers' mediation allowed technology to adapt to PWD's and carers' preferences and performance. Conceptual and methodological tools emerged as outcomes of the analytical process, representing an important contribution to understanding the role of technologies to increase PwD's wellbeing and orient future research.University of Huddersfield, under grants URF301-01 and URF506-01