CareD: Non-Pharmacological Assistance for Dementia Patients

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Dementia is a common form of Alzheimer disease which is affecting the quality of older adults' life. Non-drug treatment such as cognitive therapies are more beneficial for such patients. These days, mobile applications are providing tremendous opportunities for aiding the medicinal treatment. OBJECTIVES: This paper presents CareDa mobile application based solution for dementia patients and their caregivers. Unlike, other available mobile applications, CareD provide a single resolution for maximum dementia related complications. The main objective of this application is to improve the quality of life of dementia patients and facilitate their caregivers. CareD also aims at providing native language support i.e. Urdu to the people of Pakistan. METHODS: CareD comprises of various modules including cognitive therapy sessions, patient tracking, reminders, healthy living to aid dementia patients in their everyday activities. Experimental study involving dementia patients and their caregivers has been carried out to evaluate the usability and effectiveness of this application. RESULTS: Twenty patients were included in the study. Results showed that CareD is very effective and helpful in decreasing the disease progression as well as in relieving the burden of caregivers. CONCLUSION: CareD has been found to be a useful and efficient solution for dementia patients. It was observed that utilization of mobile application was progressively successful in reducing the stress of both; patients and their caregivers. The use of native language Urdu made the application more learnable for older adults and improved its acceptance.

Scoping review: the empowerment of Alzheimer’s Disease caregivers with mHealth applications

“…On the other hand, many mHealth applications have been designed for AD patients to perform cognitive tests for AD diagnosis themselves. For example, some mHealth applications have been designed to evaluate and help enhance the cognitive skills of the patients through exercises and problems 22 , 24 . Our review can be used to guide the design and development of mHealth applications to provide comprehensive support for caregivers of AD patients.…”

“…Tracking of the AD patient was featured in 9 out of the 12 (75%) applications [18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26] . The most identifiable symptom of AD is forgetfulness and memory loss.…”

“…AD patients are at risk of getting lost and not being able to find their way back home. Eight applications track the patient's current location, allowing caregivers to check at any given time [19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26] . Only one application, AlzSense, offered tracking by keeping a history of the patient's location changes by date and time 18 .…”

“…Features that help task management of caregivers were included in 8 out of 12 (66.7%) applications 19,20,[22][23][24][25]27,28 . As AD progresses and the patient becomes increasingly dependent on the caregiver to carry out daily activities, the caregiver is burdened with essential tasks for two people.…”

“…These applications would send an automatic task reminder alert to the caregiver. The other two applications, CareD and the application by A. Ghanem et al, 20,22 require the caregivers to set up reminders for the patients. For example, the caregivers would set up timed alerts for when the patient should take medications or perform a daily task.…”