Dementia has become a major health problem with an equally important economic impact on our society and enabling patients with dementia and their caregivers to improve their quality of life and dignity is a great challenge. A significant solution to meet the challenge, could be the use of Personal Virtual Assistant (PVA). The aim of this paper is to share the know-how reached in the design and adaptation of the Personal Virtual Assistant "Anne" for moderate dementia patients and their formal caregivers. The paper presents the results of the first iteration of protected environment tests in Italy and Luxembourg.
Over 50 million people worldwide are living with dementia and it is expected that this will double every 20 years. With our project "Living well with Anne" we aim to develop a virtual agent, called Anne which can help people with dementia to continue living independently in their own homes and support their caregivers in their caring tasks. The project started in June 2017 and will last 3 years. Using a user-centered approach, the virtual agent will be developed so that it can progressively meet the needs of the people as the level of dementia changes. The project has already undertaken some work related to the end-user needs and requirements which will be followed by extensive field trials. This paper reports on the results of the first part of our project: end-user and stakeholder requirements analysis. This requirement analysis has been obtained through focus groups which were held at end-user organizations in Italy and Luxembourg. Results show that Anne can be useful to help people with dementia to continue living independently at home given specific adjustments. It may have an impact on the Quality of Life of both the users and (by proxy) their caregivers but its relevance needs to be explored in more detail within the forthcoming field trials.
Medir a qualidade de vida e o bem-estar é um enorme desafio que apenas começamos a enfrentar, pois as tecnologias digitais tendem a encontrar novas maneiras de medi-los e os investigadores desenvolvem novos métodos, escalas e inquéritos. No entanto, nesses casos, dados incidentais e questões éticas podem surgir. Para abordar melhor os possíveis conflitos que surgem nesse contexto, este artigo fornece uma breve revisão de conceitos (por exemplo, bem-estar, qualidade de vida), seguido de uma tentativa de pavimentar o caminho para o futuro, baseando-se em diretrizes em relação à melhoria da medição do bem-estar via tecnologia.
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