iWander: An Android application for dementia patients

Abstract

Non-pharmacological management of dementia puts a burden on those who are taking care of a patient that suffer from this chronic condition. Caregivers frequently need to assist their patients with activities of daily living. However, they are also encouraged to promote functional independence. With the use of a discrete monitoring device, functional independence is increased among dementia patients while decreasing the stress put on caregivers. This paper describes a tool which improves the quality of treatment for dementia patients using mobile applications. Our application, iWander, runs on several Android based devices with GPS and communication capabilities. This allows for caregivers to cost effectively monitor their patients remotely. The data uncollected from the device is evaluated using Bayesian network techniques which estimate the probability of wandering behavior. Upon evaluation several courses of action can be taken based on the situation's severity, dynamic settings and probability. These actions include issuing audible prompts to the patient, offering directions to navigate them home, sending notifications to the caregiver containing the location of the patient, establishing a line of communication between the patient-caregiver and performing a party call between the caregiver-patient and patient's local 911. As patients use this monitoring system more, it will better learn and identify normal behavioral patterns which increases the accuracy of the Bayesian network for all patients. Normal behavior classifications are also used to alert the caregiver or help patients navigate home if they begin to wander while driving allowing for functional independence.

Developing Navigational Services for People with Down's Syndrome

“…iWander [8] is a mobile application on the Android platform to allow people with dementia to navigate while allowing their caregivers to monitor their patients remotely. Data is constantly collected and evaluated using Bayesian network techniques to estimate the probability that the patient is wandering, and the situations severity.…”

ContextProvider: Context awareness for medical monitoring applications

“…This design is comparable to systems such as automated wandering detection for dementia patients [11]. For such cases, the data set can be flagged for analysis by medical professionals.…”

“…Information such as harsh weather conditions, combined with location and time of day, can be useful in determining if a dementia patient is wandering [11]. External data requires a different access method than sensor data but with the same goal, which is to provide an up-to-date view of the world.…”

CardioSmart365: Artificial Intelligence in the Service of Cardiologic Patients

“…The need for such applications is apparent in every major online market for mobile applications including Android Market, Apple Store, and Samsung Apps. Applications developed for cardiology record blood pressure and cardiac pulses, applications for diabetes record blood glucose [16], and for obesity, they record calories and diet [17], for dementia they use GPS to monitor the patient [18,19], and applications for chronic diseases target mobile phones with sensors and detect tachycardia or respiratory infections [20].…”