Talking wrist band for people with dementia / purple

[Jacqui12]

Hello my students and I are trying to come up with assistive technology to help carers and individuals with dementia we are thinking about a talking/ recordable purple Fitbit style product . Any ideas or other thoughts we could develop?

Thank you in advance
Jacqui

 

[canary]

I answered on another thread, but I will answer in a bit more detail here.

I think there is going to be two problems here. The first one is ensuring that the person with dementia (PWD) will wear the wrist band. They do not remember what it is for and are adept at removing things. I tried to get mum to wear a fall alarm (the button that you push to contact someone if you fall which is worn round the neck) but mum never wore it. I would tell her that she needed to wear it and she would agree, only to take it off again 2 mins later. When she fell and broke her arm it was put in a plaster cast, but she kept trying to take that off too as she couldnt remember that she had broken her arm and didnt understand why it was there. She succeeded in removing a couple of times too and I think the only reason she kept it on as long as she did was because she was in a care home and the carers would stop her pulling at it. Before she went into the care home she was wandering outside and getting lost, but she would not wear a tracker and hiding it in a handbag or clothing didnt work as she went out side without her bag/keys/coat and often at night when she was wearing nothing more than a dressing gown.

The second problem is that the PWD is likely to ignore a disembodied voice, Mum would often not attend to, or misinterpreted what I said. I found that the best way of getting her to listen was to face her directly and maintain eye contact as I spoke to her; you cant do that with a wristband.

Im sorry to be so negative, but unfortunately PWDs often dont do well with technology as they either dont understand it or dont see the need for it and they certainly cant remember why it is there.

 

[Tin]

With Canary on this one. Whatever stage of Dementia you are trying to help with this idea - early stages they would not wear it because they may feel insulted by such a thing and then further down the line you have the fidgeting and fiddling plus the fact that maybe the dementia sufferer can no longer understand what is being said to them.

Understanding technology in a Dementia world is very limited if there at all. Learning new skills and retaining information is just not there. You may be better coming up with something that will entertain - having said that I cannot come up with anything that will help you, my mum gets joy from playing with a pack of cards and a music box. Sometimes the simple things are the best.

 

[Jacqui12]

Thank you for your feedback

With Canary on this one. Whatever stage of Dementia you are trying to help with this idea - early stages they would not wear it because they may feel insulted by such a thing and then further down the line you have the fidgeting and fiddling plus the fact that maybe the dementia sufferer can no longer understand what is being said to them.

Understanding technology in a Dementia world is very limited if there at all. Learning new skills and retaining information is just not there. You may be better coming up with something that will entertain - having said that I cannot come up with anything that will help you, my mum gets joy from playing with a pack of cards and a music box. Sometimes the simple things are the best.

Thank you so very much for your feedback back to the drawing board for me I guess . Would love to hear if anyone has any ideas we could develop

Best
Jacqui

 

[Oh Knickers]

Jacqui,

May I make a suggestion? You are very kindly trying to come up with ideas for dementia. Have you ever spent time in a care home for those with dementia? That might be worth organising. Then you will get an idea of what the issues are. Even doing the course run by Alzheimer's Association for carers would be worth your while.

With dementia, a lot of the issues need calm, understanding people. These people need bucket loads of empathy, understanding, resiliance and creativity. As has already been explained PWD (Persons with Dementia), whilst lost and confused, can have a small, mad pocket of sheer breathtaking independence to their own detriment. Hence other ideas of robots helping PWD lacks insight.

A modicum of understanding of the world those with dementia live in will help you with insight as to their needs.

 

[mrjelly]

Perhaps you could help dementia sufferers more easily by helping their carers. Anything that made family carers lives a bit easier, by saving them time or accessing care and health services more easily could benefit the person with dementia.

One idea could be some kind of care logging app that records the PWD's current condition and the care being provided. The information could be worked up into a weekly report to help the carer communicate their needs to official bodies.

Or perhaps something similar to help professional carers fill in their paperwork so they can spend less time on that and more time looking after their clients. An advanced system might prompt the carer with appropriate questions for each client and print a brief visit report to be inserted into their care log to be read by the next carer who visits the person. If carers are only allocated 30 minutes per visit, then every minute saved is significant.

 

[Oh Knickers]

MrJelly's idea is a good one. Could you and your students look at developing a system on an iPad or phone that independently records when paid carers arrive and leave? There is a problem for a lot of people of carers turning up and turning tail after 5 mins, turning up and not doing as instructed eg not washing or feeding PWD (Person with dementia), or not turning up at all. That trail of evidence would be very helpful for relatives. The carer could have a check list of what they are expected to achieve each day and tick off what they have done - or explain why it has not been done which is another issue. If actions are not done there is then a prompt for actions for them to take e.g. phone relative, let care company know. If that final action is not done an unobtrusive alert could be raised.

You may still find it helpful to get a deeper understanding of dementia and it's implications by talking with those caring or providing care for those with dementia.

 

[Jacqui12]

Thank you

Jacqui,

May I make a suggestion? You are very kindly trying to come up with ideas for dementia. Have you ever spent time in a care home for those with dementia? That might be worth organising. Then you will get an idea of what the issues are. Even doing the course run by Alzheimer's Association for carers would be worth your while.

With dementia, a lot of the issues need calm, understanding people. These people need bucket loads of empathy, understanding, resiliance and creativity. As has already been explained PWD (Persons with Dementia), whilst lost and confused, can have a small, mad pocket of sheer breathtaking independence to their own detriment. Hence other ideas of robots helping PWD lacks insight.

A modicum of understanding of the world those with dementia live in will help you with insight as to their needs.

Yes I have worked in a care home for pwd for 10 years though quite a while ago

 

[thekeymurphy]

MrJelly's idea is a good one. Could you and your students look at developing a system on an iPad or phone that independently records when paid carers arrive and leave? There is a problem for a lot of people of carers turning up and turning tail after 5 mins, turning up and not doing as instructed eg not washing or feeding PWD (Person with dementia), or not turning up at all. That trail of evidence would be very helpful for relatives. The carer could have a check list of what they are expected to achieve each day and tick off what they have done - or explain why it has not been done which is another issue. If actions are not done there is then a prompt for actions for them to take e.g. phone relative, let care company know. If that final action is not done an unobtrusive alert could be raised.

You may still find it helpful to get a deeper understanding of dementia and it's implications by talking with those caring or providing care for those with dementia.

Agreed. Any steps towards helping family carers or families with carers, would be very helpful. My experiences, like others, has shown that trying to get PWD to work with technology can be a fruitless affair.

Hope your research goes well

 

[Jaman]

Hi. I recently had a carer suggest creating a dementia device similar to "Siri", which could be used as a verbal memo pad, for enabling better communication between carers and care support workers,and a prompt for those with dementia. I know there are some entertainment devices and 'phone apps that are available which could probably be adapted. Some devices are able to turn TV's on and dim lights etc. These may also help if they were programmed to dementia specific tasks. I think the possibilities are endless, but the needs of the carer have to be discussed with those who are directly involved, and possibly tailored to each individual. I hope I have made some sense?!.

It's not whether you grasp the right end of the stick that matters, its whether you need to grasp the stick in the first place.