Use And Adoption Of A Touch-Based Occupational Therapy Tool For People Suffering From Dementia

Even in its early stages, the cognitive deficits in persons with dementia (PwD) can produce significant functional impairment. Dementia is characterized by changes in personality and behavioral functioning that can be very challenging for caregivers and patients. This paper presents results on the use and adoption of a cognition assistive system to support occupational therapy to address psychological and behavioral symptoms of dementia. During 6 months we conducted an in situ system evaluation with a caregiver-PwD dyad to evaluate the adoption and effectiveness of the system to ameliorate challenging behaviors. Evaluation results indicate that intervention personalization and touch-based systems interfaces encouraged the adoption and the positive effect in reducing challenging behaviors in PwD and decreases caregiver burden.