A technology-aided program for helping persons with Alzheimer’s disease perform daily activities

Abstract

Purpose Persons with mild and moderate Alzheimer’s disease experience increasing activity engagement failures, with consequent cognitive, social, and physical drawbacks. The purpose of this paper is to assess a technology-aided program to help these persons to independently start and carry out daily activities at the appropriate times. Design/methodology/approach The program was implemented with eight participants according to an adapted non-concurrent multiple baseline design across participants. The program provided each participant with: timely reminders about the activities to carry out, verbal instructions about the activity steps, and brief encouragements and praise. Findings All participants showed improvement during the program, that is, they managed to independently start the activities at the scheduled times and perform those activities with satisfactory levels of accuracy (i.e. with mean percentages of correct steps nearing or exceeding 90). Originality/value A technology-aided program, such as that used in this study, may help persons with mild and moderate Alzheimer disease engage in daily activities, with possible benefits for their cognitive functioning, social image, and physical condition.

Assistive Technology Programs to Support Persons with Neurodevelopmental Disorders

“…A technologyaided program to help counter these problems may involve the use of a commercial device, such as a tablet or smartphone, which is programmed to alert the individuals about the activities (i.e., at the appropriate times) and to provide them verbal instructions/cues concerning the steps to carry out. Actually, the individuals may receive all the required inputs via a wireless Bluetooth earpiece linked to the tablet or smartphone (Kerkhof et al 2016;Lancioni et al 2017;Wang et al 2017).…”

Recent Technology-Aided Programs to Support Adaptive Responses, Functional Activities, and Leisure and Communication in People With Significant Disabilities

“…People with mild to severe intellectual disabilities with or without additional sensory or motor impairments, people with neurodegenerative diseases, in particular mild and moderate Alzheimer's disease, as well as people with acquired brain injury are often unable to carry out functional, multistep activities (21, 22, 35, 53). Indeed, they may fail to perform self-care sequences (e.g., morning routine), daily domestic tasks (e.g., preparing coffee, setting the table, or making a snack), and work tasks (e.g., assembling and packaging commercial products) (35, 54, 55).…”

“…Six recent studies adopting a technology-based approach are summarized in this section (19, 21, 35, 59–61). The support tools used for helping the participants to perform the tasks varied on multiple aspects.…”

“…The support tools used for helping the participants to perform the tasks varied on multiple aspects. Yet, the studies reported below are divided into two groups based on only one of those aspects, that is, on whether the support tools were non-portable (19, 60, 61), or portable (21, 35, 59) (see Table 2).…”

“…Lancioni et al (21) set up and assessed a support tool aimed at promoting the performance of daily tasks of eight participants with mild or moderate Alzheimer's disease. The tool reminded the participants of those tasks at the appropriate times and provided them with verbal instructions concerning the steps of those tasks.…”