Name of your initiative:
Dementia Ambient Care: Multi-Sensing Monitoring for Intelligent Remote Management and Decision Support
Short name (acronym):
Dem@Care
Website title and address:
Dem@Care ProjectWhich organization is submitting this initiative?:
CERTH
Please specify in which regions/provinces:
ΕΛΛΑΔΑ (ELLADA)›ΒΟΡΕΙΑ ΕΛΛΑΔΑ (VOREIA ELLADA)›Κεντρική Μακεδονία (Kentriki Makedonia)›Θεσσαλονίκη (Thessaloniki)City:
Thessaloniki
Where is this organization located?:
Greece
Please enter the name of the contact person for this initiative:
Ioannis Kompatsiaris
Please enter the email of the contact for this initiative:
ikom@iti.grPart of larger strategy or programme:
European
If you answered "other", please specify:
Please provide us with more details of this programme or strategy:
Dem@Care aims mitigate the impacts of dementia by enabling people at early stages of dementia to live home independently for longer, and by helping caregivers provide optimally personalized care solutions. To this end, Dem@Care has developed a multi-sensor monitoring system, where sensing outcomes are fused intelligently, for personalized remote care, feedback and support.
The Dem@Care monitoring solutions are both ambient and wearable. Ambient monitoring includes monitoring of the environment, utility usage, sleep, and ambient visual sensing to monitor activities of daily living for behavioural and lifestyle profiling. Wearable sensors monitor health parameters, activity levels, emotional and cognitive status, while wearable visual sensors are deployed for a detailed view of daily activities. The multi-sensor measurements are intelligently fused, providing feedback tailored to the end users’ needs, with different interfaces for the person with dementia, their informal caregiver and the clinician.
Dem@Care has been designed for three environments in four countries:
1) Dem@Lab is deployed in a hospital lab in Nice, France and Thessaloniki, Greece, to enhance early, accurate diagnosis.
2) Dem@NursingHome is monitoring daily life in a nursing home in Lulea, Sweden for increased safety, and lifestyle feedback.
3) Dem@Home is deployed in homes of people with dementia living alone, in Dublin, Ireland and Thessaloniki, Greece.
The full range of Dem@Care’s possibilities is thus being demonstrated in a variety of real world situations, where it is enhancing the clinical picture of the people with dementia, providing timely, relevant feedback and overall improved care, while at the same time increasing their sense of safety, security and independence.
The status of the initiative:
On-going
Please give a summary of your initiative (in English):
Dem@Care aspires to contribute to the timely diagnosis, assessment, maintenance and promotion of self-independence of people with dementia, by deepening the understanding of how the disease affects their everyday life and behaviour
It implements a multi-parametric closed-loop remote management solution that affords adaptive feedback to the person with dementia, while at the same time including clinicians into the remote follow-up, enabling them to maintain a comprehensive view of the health status and progress of the affected person. The system includes:
a loop for people with dementia and their informal caregivers to monitor and assess their cognitive and behavioural status by integrating a multiplicity of wearable and in-situ sensors, enable time evolving context-sensitive profiling to support reactive and proactive care, and afford personalised and adaptive feedback.
a loop for dementia clinicians to provide objective observations regarding the health progression of the person with dementia and medication effectiveness, warn about trends closely related to dementia (e.g. apathy), and support preventive care decision making and adjustment of treatment recommendations.
The geographical scope:
European
Type of initiative:
PublicEnvironment or setting of the initiative:
UrbanThe economic environment or setting of the initiative:
ModerateThe most important source of funding for your initiative:
European funding
If other, please specify your source of funding:
What triggered this initiative?:
Dementia was characterised as a global health epidemic and a public health priority in a 2012 Alzheimer’s Disease International report. In 2013 there were 44 million cases of dementia, projected to reach 135.5 million in 2050. Dementia has great social and also financial impacts, with its cost surpassing $600 billion in 2010 and expected to increase by 85% by 2030, according to conservative estimates. Alzheimer’s disease was first described by Alois Alzheimer in 1906, and billions of dollars have been spent since on large studies to address it, however no effective medication has been developed to date.
People with dementia start to lose their ability to live independently as their condition progresses, which forces them to withdraw from their active role in society and the workforce, and eventually require daily assistance from informal carers like family members.
Dem@Care aims mitigate the impacts of dementia by enabling people at early stages of dementia to live home independently for longer, and by helping caregivers provide optimally personalized care solutions. To this end, Dem@Care has developed a multi-sensor monitoring system, where sensing outcomes are fused intelligently, for personalized remote care, feedback and support.