Analysis of requirements and specifications for a monitoring system to support the self-management of dementia patients at home

Abstract

Telemedicine systems are nowadays making significant advances in healthcare by decentralising it, offering innovative services to patients and doctors worldwide, and making medical practice more efficient and cost-effective in a plethora of its subfields. There is although a field that has not yet been successfully coped with, even though it induces a significant burden, both socially and financially. This field includes patients suffering from dementia, as well as their carers, who run the risk of developing depression symptoms themselves and often face social withdrawal and heavy additional private costs. ALADDIN is a technology platform that intends to progress "state-of-the-art" in integration of existing technological solutions. In order to develop and validate an innovative monitoring system for health promotion, risk assessment, prevention and sustainable impact of self management tools and education for patients suffering from dementia and their care-givers. In this paper the authors present the envisaged services of the ALADDIN platform, the user requirements and ALADDIN's functional specifications..

Activity tracking

“…Specifically, we hope to build on results of studies focusing on geriatrics [2], vulnerable users [11], chronic disease management [8], and dementia [1,9,10] to aid individuals experiencing chronic illness.…”

Enabling risk assessment and analysis by event detection in dementia patients using a reconfigurable rule set

“…The result was a complete list of user requirements that covers every-day needs of dementia patients and clinicians, as perceived by active practitioners on the field of healthcare. In this activity participated healthcare experts from England (NHNN), Spain (Badalona Serveis Assistensials), Italy (University of Bologna) and Greece (Attika Psychiatric Hospital) [2]. This section defines: Important clinical aspects that must be monitored, under which conditions the information is transmitted (system, units and frequency) and who are the issuers and receivers of this information.…”

“…The specific parameters were chosen to avoid problems stemming from possible difficulties in test administration by the caregivers, the sentimental attachment of caregiver and subject, as well as training and copyright issues. Thus it has been decided to include in the system only a small number of items for each of the most used and validated clinical instruments that, according to literature and clinical experience, are the most predictive of a symptomatological worsening [2]. These items for cognitive decline and cognitive stimulation status assessment are presented as follows :…”

“…After processing the user requirements and extracting the relevant functional specifications [2] the need to implement a flexible and reconfigurable component was apparent. While the pre-defined conditions for the generation of clinical warnings were explicit and direct enough, the need for flexibility of the rules and warning thresholds was also an important factor.…”

Καινοτόμοι Μηχανισμοί Συμπεριφορικής Βιομετρικής Σε Συστήματα Υποβοηθούμενης Διαβίωσης

“…Σε δημοσίευσή μας [7] περιγράψαμε τις απαιτήσεις και λειτουργικές προδιαγραφές ενός τέτοιου συστήματος, καθώς και μια προτεινόμενη αρχιτεκτονική. και δίνει τη διαφορά μεταξύ των εξόδων του μοντέλου πριν και μετά την προσαρμογή στα εισερχόμενα δεδομένα εισόδου SC.…”