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Developing help for people with dementia

2007.05.21 by Jan Fredrik Frantzen

Patients with dementia face many challenges in everyday life. Do they know that a plate on the hob is still switched on? And how does one go about putting on some music?

Good quality of life is also about being able to enjoy good music. But not everybody remembers how to turn on the stereo.

As the population ages during the next decades, more people will be affected by dementia. This in turn means major challenges for those affected – and for their families. For example, what do you do when you can no longer remember telephone numbers you have been using for years?

This is one of many topics that researcher and sociologist Halgeir Holthe at the Norwegian Centre for Telemedicine (NST) and his colleagues are investigating in Cogknow - a new EU project aimed at providing greater peace of mind and improved quality of life for people with mild dementia.

Best possible quality of life
"An example of such technology could be a telephone with a list of numbers linked with pictures," explains Holthe. It might be easier to remember a face than the name of the person you want to phone.

But the project is not limited to making it easier to perform necessary tasks, such as using the telephone. It also involves creating simple reminders – helping you to remember how to use the hi-fi to enjoy listening to good music, for example.

"We want to create solutions that make it possible for people to live at home for as long as possible – and with the best possible quality of life," says project manager Ernst Kloosterman.

The project team is also involved in developing systems to improve safety and security for those who are affected by dementia. If an electric hot plate has been left on, or the main door of the house is open, sensors can send a warning message. But how can the technology warn users in such a way that they understand what the message is about?

The new technology will be tested on people with mild dementia during the summer of 2007. Halgeir Holthe at NST is responsible for the tests that are to be carried out in Luleå in Sweden.

Development on the users' terms

The development of this technology will take place in three phases, explains Halgeir Holthe. Some of the project team members are busy with the technological development, while the social scientists are searching for the best ways of testing the solutions on users with dementia in order to obtain good answers.

Holthe is responsible for the tests to be conducted in Luleå in Sweden during the summer. They will try out the prototypes that are in development, for example in telephone technology.

On the basis of feedback from users, he will give advice to the technologists, so that they can do further work on the technical solutions and adapt them better to the everyday lives of people with dementia.

In 2008 and 2009 there will be new tests and further development before the researchers arrive at technology that can be applied in practice – providing greater peace of mind and improved quality of life for users.

Cognitive knowledge
Cogknow stands for "cognitive knowledge" - or knowledge about how the memory works. The project is funded by the EU's Seventh Framework Programme and by the partners in the project, including the Norwegian Centre for Telemedicine. The work began in the second half of 2006 and is scheduled for completion in the second half of 2009. More information about the project is available on this page:

Contact persons at the NST
If you would like to know more about this project, you can contact sociologist Halgeir Holthe at mobile telephone number +47 957 29 763 or Ernst Kloosterman, mobile telephone number +47 957 43 945.

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