Daily Assistance for Individuals With Dementia via Videophone

Abstract

We previously developed remote reminiscence conversation and schedule prompter systems via the videophone to improve psychological stability and to assist individuals with dementia to perform household tasks. Our results showed that the psychological stability of 1 patient persisted for 3 hours after remote conversations. The task completion rate afforded by the schedule prompter system, which displays a video reminder series automatically, was 52%. In the present study, we also investigated whether psychological stability was sustained in other patients. Furthermore, motivational prompter videos were added to enhance the original schedule prompter system. We found that 1 in 4 patients living at home showed greater stability while conversing with a conversation partner on the videophone than while watching television programs, and that she remained stable for 3 hours after remote conversations. The task completion rate afforded by the revised schedule prompter system was 82%. These 2 remote systems are promising tools for assisting individuals with dementia in their daily lives.

A Systematic Review of the Use of Technology for Reminiscence Therapy

“…Both parties can indicate regions of interest, and the therapist or caretaker can control the visual effects that accompany the reminiscence videos. Evaluations of this system have found that most individuals find remote RT enjoyable, and some have had persisting benefits in terms of managing behavioral symptoms, such as anxiety, irritability, and restlessness (Kuwahara, Yasuda, Tetsutani, & Morimoto, 2010; Yasuda, Kuwahara, Kuwabara, Morimoto, & Tetsutani, 2013; Yasuda, Kuwahara, & Morimoto, 2009). While remote RT could reduce barriers due to transportation difficulties, they may create new barriers for individuals lacking technical expertise or necessary hardware.…”

“…While remote RT could reduce barriers due to transportation difficulties, they may create new barriers for individuals lacking technical expertise or necessary hardware. The researchers involved in networked reminiscence therapy addressed this concern by setting up the system in the participants’ homes and remotely starting applications (Yasuda et al, 2013). …”

Designing a spoken dialogue interface to an intelligent cognitive assistant for people with dementia

“…Results show that more mixed methods work is needed to flesh out the "friendly guide" persona suggested in this paper. Future versions of the ICA should also integrate multimodal prompts using voice and video or haptic feedback as and when appropriate [39,40]. …”

Towards a Natural Language-based Dialog Model as an Assistant Tool for Dementia Therapy

“…On the other hand, there are approaches that promote the use of assistive technology to help people with dementia with activities of daily living (ADLs) [20,13,18,8] and support different kinds of therapy to address psychological, emotional and behavioral symptoms of dementia [1,3,14,15].…”

“…Yasuda et al [20] developed a remote reminiscence conversation and schedule prompter system via videophone to improve psychological stability and to assist individuals with dementia to perform household tasks. They observed that psychological stability of 1 patient persisted for 3 hours after remote conversations.…”