Reminiscence of People With Dementia Mediated by Multimedia Artifacts

Tangible User Interface for Social Interactions for the Elderly: A Review of Literature

“…Only seven papers focused on the social interaction of the elderly people. Foverskov and Binder [43] studied the possibilities for elderly people to have more active interactions and dialogues; workshop series conducted by Ehrenstrasser and Spreicer [47] in 2010 explored on the communication habits of elderly people; Meza-Kubo et al [56] studied interactions of elderly people within cognitive stimulation sessions and the factors affecting the relationships of them with their family through case study; Huldtgren et al [58] observed the interactions of the elderly participants with a tangible multimedia book and interactions between people during reminiscence sessions; Marques et al [53] conducted usability testing to observe how elderly people used tangible objects and interacted with other players while playing tabletop game; using tangible objects and tabletop surface, Murko and Kunze [62] studied the well-being of the dementia patients in terms of social interactions between caregivers and patients; and lastly, Angelini et al [63] evaluated whether elderly participants managed communicate with the person on the other side of the prototype, a tangible window. The small amount of reviewed papers focusing on social interaction of the elderly people clearly shows the lack of evidence in using TUI to make an impact on the social interactions of older adults.…”

“…During the evaluations, usability aspects were studied in most of the papers, and in their evaluation, social aspects were completely neglected. Out of the 21 papers, only seven papers [43,47,53,56,58,62,63] focused on the social interaction aspect during their evaluation. Other papers like Davidoff et al [50], West et al [45], Spreicer et al [44], and Zhao et al [49] focused on usability aspects, such as ease of use, performance results in using the prototype, and feelings of independence.…”

Literature review: technological interventions and their impact on quality of life for people living with dementia

“…This could be attributed to healthy people often having trouble interacting with people with dementia, partly down to a lack of understanding 24. In addition, other potential symptoms of dementia, including difficulties with speech, reasoning and decision-making, could make it difficult for people with dementia to engage in meaningful interactions, often detrimental to their self-confidence and quality of life 30. Despite this, positive social interaction can have a substantial impact, with Kim et al 31 stating that positive social experiences are proven to slow down symptoms of the disease.…”

“… 24 In addition, other potential symptoms of dementia, including difficulties with speech, reasoning and decision-making, could make it difficult for people with dementia to engage in meaningful interactions, often detrimental to their self-confidence and quality of life. 30 Despite this, positive social interaction can have a substantial impact, with Kim et al 31 stating that positive social experiences are proven to slow down symptoms of the disease. Enabling these dialogues and experiences also has the potential to positively influence feelings of worth and belonging and can help individuals with dementia to experience activities or environments that they can appreciate and enjoy with others—all of which being vital factors in the DQoL model.…”

“…With negative social experiences or social isolation impacting self-confidence, 30 it is imperative that positive experiences are encouraged and facilitated to improve quality of life. One method of achieving this is through reminiscence, proven to improve mood, cognition and behaviour, 6 while also increasing interpersonal communication.…”