Activity Monitoring of People with Dementia in a Cognitive Stimulation Intervention

Abstract

Commercial activity trackers are increasingly being used to support healthcare research. While their accuracy has been questioned, they do provide more precise information on some parameters relevant to wellbeing than self-report, such as steps walked and sleep duration. Few studies, however, report on the use of these devices with people with dementia. We report the design and preliminary results of a cognitive stimulation therapy for people with dementia in which participants were monitored using activity trackers. We describe the strategies implemented to promote adoption and adherence of these devices, some of the issues we faced in the study and recommendations for future studies. An analysis of the results show that these devices are useful to show the differences in patterns of activity of the participants and were able to track differences in behavior in the days when the therapy intervention has held.