HUG: A Compassionate Approach to Designing for Wellbeing in Dementia Care

Abstract

Design can improve the quality of life of people living with dementia but creating successful design solutions is not simple, due to the complexity of the medical condition, and the ethical considerations of including those affected in design research and evaluation. This article describes research involving an interactive product, ‘HUG’, developed from academic research, to support the wellbeing of people living with advanced dementia, which is now commercially available. People affected by dementia were included at every stage in the design research process. The evaluation of HUG took place in both hospital and care home contexts with 40 participants living with dementia. In this paper, a qualitative hospital study is described, in which patients received a HUG on prescription. Findings reveal that although HUG was rejected by some, those patients who did accept it benefitted significantly. Not only did the device reduce distress, anxiety and agitation but it also helped with patient compliance in medical procedures, aspects of daily care and enhanced communication and socialisation. The Alzheimer’s Society’s accelerator partnership funding has enabled this product to be manufactured and made commercially available so that the benefits of this academic design research can be made more widely available to people living with dementia.

Existing Digital Health Technology Index Summary Report for Older Adults Living with Neurocognitive Disorders (Mild and Major) and Their Informal Caregivers: An Environmental Scan

“…Many NCD-focused publications showcase a range of innovative designs and creative interventions that have been developed for the health promotion and supportive care of older adults with NCDs. [3,12,19,[23][24][25] Innovative promising solutions address the twin impacts of an aging population with increased cognitive impairment and the shortage of caregivers [6,26]. Such occasions can be effectively dealt with through the utilization of digital health solutions, robots, artificial intelligence-driven sensors, embedded and wearable devices, including video, and other monitoring systems integrated into the home environment can offer increased security, safety, and health management, and social systems to support both the older adult with NCDs as well as informal and formal caregivers [12,22,27].…”

“…[2]. NCDs raise complex challenges for older adults, their families, and society, since they lead to progressive decline in cognitive functioning and activities of daily living, resulting in people becoming more dependent on the support of others, social exclusion, caregiver stress, and increasing care costs [3]. NCDs negatively affect the quality of life of older adults as they suffer problems with memory, thinking, orientation, language, comprehension, and judgment [4].…”

What kind of a problem is loneliness? Representations of connectedness and participation from a study of telepresence technologies in the UK

“…Technology is reported as being unable to replace face-to-face social interaction ( 61 ), and maintaining therapeutic relationships via digital interfaces can be difficult ( 53 ). Technology designers have responded to the challenges of producing more satisfactory experiences of technology-mediated communication – as shown in increased provision of video-calling during the pandemic compared to audio-only telephone contact – and through embodied technologies such as the therapeutic social robot, Paro, and HUG, a therapeutic calming device for people with dementia ( 62 ). Paro and other robot companions offer embodied co-presence which in itself can provide company thus addressing loneliness, but also stimulate social connections with other people ( 37 , 63 ).…”

Homing wellness: can narrative design transform living spaces for people with dementia into engaging environments enabling communication?

“…Lately, the emergence of a broad range of assistive technology products for people with dementia, positively received by users, has been observed despite the lack of hard quantitative evidence. For example, HUG, a huggable soft object with embedded technology ( 25 ), and PARO, a therapeutic robot seal ( 26 ), were introduced as non-pharmacological treatments.…”

“…Even though studies investigating the impact of handling sensory objects on the wellbeing of people with dementia suggest their positive value in providing opportunities for engagement, storytelling, and social interactions through verbal and non-verbal communication (25,(27)(28)(29)(30), there is a lack of research on large sensory spatial products, especially with embedded technology. The research described in this study, titled Homing Wellness, examines if embedded technology can be used in spatial objects to enhance the sensory experience of people with dementia and if such objects can interrelate to create a narrative spatial network potentially supporting communication.…”