COGKNOW: Development of an ICT Device to Support People with Dementia

Objective: To develop a successful user-validated cognitive prosthetic device with associated services to help persons with mild dementia. Setting: The ICT solution will be developed by a consortium of eleven institutes in eight countries in Europe. It will be tested and evaluated by users (persons with dementia and their carers) in 3 European cities - Amsterdam, Belfast and Luleå. Methods: To identify and analyse the needs of persons with dementia, workshops and interviews were conducted with Alzheimer patients suffering from mild dementia, and their carers in three European cities. A literature search was also performed to identify existing proven effective ICT solutions for persons with dementia. Results: The most important needs and the most preferred ICT solutions identified by participants were (i) Activity reminders e.g. for eating meals; (ii) Item locators; (iii) Picture dialling to keep in contact with family and friends; (iv) Support for pleasure activities; (v) Enhancement of feelings of safety. Conclusion: Based on the needs identified, a prototype solution will be built, tested and modified as an iterative process. The device will ultimately be evaluated to see if it can enhance feelings of autonomy and quality of life of persons with dementia

Supporting people with dementia using pervasive health technologies

In this chapter, an introduction is provided into pervasive healthcare technology, specifically as the use of information and communications technology in support of European policies, primarily inclusion. The focus of the chapter, and indeed the book, is on how such technologies can support people suffering from debilitating diseases including Alzheimer’s. The work describes a research project called COGKNOW, comprising a multidisciplinary research consortium of scientists from across Europe, and relates some of the early achievements of the group from some very different perspectives, including technical, clinical, ethical, and of course how the needs of people with dementia and their carers can be harnessed in the development process to produce pervasive healthcare technology and services that are valued by all the stakeholders in the process

Evaluation of mobile and home based cognitive prosthetics

Those suffering from mild dementia exhibit impairments of memory, thought and reasoning. It has been recognised that the deployment of technological solutions to address such impairments may have a major positive impact on quality of life. In the current paper we present results from the CogKnow Project following the evaluation of a suite of mobile and home based cognitive prosthetics to assist persons suffering from mild dementia. The results following an evaluation of the technology conducted with 16 people with mild dementia (and their carers) across 3 different trial sites are outlined. The paper concludes with details describing the process by which the outcomes of the evaluation will be used to guide the developments of a second generation of both mobile and home based cognitive prosthetic

Home based assistive technologies for people with mild dementia

Those suffering from mild dementia exhibit impairments of memory, thought and reasoning. It has been recognised that deployment of technological solutions to address such impairments may have a major positive impact on the quality of life and can be used to help perform daily life activities hence maintaining a level of independence. In this paper we present an overview of our current investigations into how technology can be used to improve the quality of life of the ageing person with mild dementia. Specifically, we detail the methodology adopted for our work, outline results attained from a series of workshops to identify user needs and finally present how these user needs have been mapped onto the design of home based assistive technologies

Towards sustainable business models from healthcare technology research

As demographic ageing impacts across the world, health and welfare organisations are seeking new paradigms of care that address people's needs as well as being inherently more scalable than the incumbent processes and services. The aim of this paper is to describe the current situation in Europe with information on service provision, before signposting some possible new ways to develop sustainable business models that support care models. The paper uses a case study approach to examine the issues in the introduction of such business models, from a perspective of the translation of research proof of concepts into business services and from the perspective of developing innovations from research that address unmet or poorly considered needs of user. The paper shows how several innovative European projects are anticipating the need for service change and are designing their research outcomes to match the needs of service commissioners more fully. The conclusion discusses several different approaches before drawing together strands of the work and providing tentative recommendations on the way forward to develop new inclusive technology-enhanced services in health and social careGodkänd; 2010; 20100205 (animel)MyHealth@Ag

The development of personalised cognitive prosthetics

Persons suffering from mild dementia can benefit from a form of cognitive prosthetic which can be used to assist them with their day to day activities. Within our current work we are aiming to develop a successful user-validated cognitive prosthetic for persons with mild dementia. We have devised a three phased waterfall methodology to support our developments. Based on the evaluation of the first of these phases which involved the processes of user requirements gathering, prototype development and evaluation of in situ deployment of the technology we have been able to guide the technical development within the second phase of our work. Within this paper we provide an overview of the first phase of our methodology and demonstrate how we have used the results from this to guide the second phase of our work, especially with regards to the notion of personalisation