A tailored smart home for dementia care

Abstract

Dementia refers to a group of chronic conditions that cause the permanent and gradual cognitive decline. Therefore, a Person with Dementia (PwD) requires constant care from various classes of caregivers. The care costs of PwDs bear a tremendous burden on healthcare systems around the world. It is commonly accepted that utilising smart homes (SH), as an instance of ambient assisted living (AAL) technologies, can facilitate the care, and consequently improve the quality of PwDs wellbeing. Nevertheless, most of the existing platforms assume dementia care is a straight application of standard SH technology without accommodating the specific requirements of dementia care. A consequence of this approach is the inadequacy and unacceptability of generic SH systems in the context of dementia care. Contrary to most of the existing SH systems proposed for dementia care, this study considers the specific requirements of PwDs and their care circle in all development steps of an SH. In addition, it investigates how utilising novel design and computing approaches can enhance the quality of SHs for dementia care. To do so, the requirements of dementia care stakeholders are collected, analysed and reflected on in an SH system design. Extensions and adaptation of existing frameworks and technologies are proposed to implement a prototype based on the resulting design. Finally, thorough evaluations and validation of the prototype are carried out. The evaluations by a group of stakeholders show the suitability of the proposed methodology and consequently the resulting prototypes for reducing dementia care difficulties as well as its potential for deployment in the real-world environment.

Technology and Dementia: The Future is Now

“…These first emerged in the late 1990s and have evolved to address the needs of people with dementia, informal (family) caregivers, formal (clinical) caregivers and social (i.e., nonmedical) caregivers [29]. The Gloucester Smart Home [30], an early prototype for individuals with dementia coupled bath and cooker monitors with an automated nightlight, item locator and digital message board to provide visual and verbal prompts such as “time for your medication.” More recent examples leverage advances in sensor technology, AI and machine learning to support cooking [31], dressing [32] and reduce demands for caregiving [29]. In addition, smart home technologies are becoming available for individuals to install themselves [33], creating huge potential for conducting scalable clinical trials at home [34, 35].…”

Non-Invasive Ambient Intelligence in Real Life: Dealing with Noisy Patterns to Help Older People

“…Some researchers have identified smart homes as instances of AAL technologies. They have suggested that these AAL technologies can facilitate care, and consequently improve the quality of service provided to users [26]. Almost all the works in this field are based on the principle of event-condition-action (ECA), mainly due to the use of user interfaces for triggering actions from a program.…”

Technology and Dementia: The Future Is Now

“…Other examples of Cognitive Assistive Technologies combine sensors with AI and machine learning embedded in living environments to create "smart homes," which can detect and analyse health [28] and other events. These first emerged in the late 1990s and have evolved to address the needs of people with dementia, informal (family) caregivers, formal (clinical) caregivers and social (i.e., nonmedical) caregivers [29]. The Gloucester Smart Home [30], an early prototype for individuals with dementia coupled bath and cooker monitors with an automated nightlight, item locator and digital message board to provide visual and verbal prompts such as "time for your medication."…”

“…The Gloucester Smart Home [30], an early prototype for individuals with dementia coupled bath and cooker monitors with an automated nightlight, item locator and digital message board to provide visual and verbal prompts such as "time for your medication." More recent examples leverage advances in sensor technology, AI and machine learning to support cooking [31], dressing [32] and reduce demands for caregiving [29]. In addition, smart home technologies are becoming available for individuals to install themselves [33], creating huge potential for conducting scalable clinical trials at home [34,35].…”