Dementia Ambient Care: Multi-Sensing Monitoring for Intelligent Remote Management and Decision Support

Background

Name of your initiative:

Short name (acronym):

Dem@Care

Website title and address:

Dem@Care Project

Which 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.gr

Part 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:

Public

Environment or setting of the initiative:

Urban

The economic environment or setting of the initiative:

Moderate

The 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.

Objectives

What are the main objectives of your initiative? Choose a maximum of 3 objectives.:

Housing: increase the number of older people living independentlyCommunity support and health services: increase in client-oriented and -centered made to measure health and social care and services

Please describe any subgoals of your initiative:

Dem@Care 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.

Target group

Does your initiative target people with a specific impairment or disease?:

Dementia - Mild Cognitive Impairment

How many people have you reached or do you expect to reach with your initiative?:

250 - 1000

Does your initiative target a specific age group?:

65 - 79

Does your initiative target men or women?:

Irrelevant

Approach

Please indicate what best describes your initiative:

Implementation›ICT›MonitoringImplementation›ICT›SensoringImplementation›TechnologyResearch›Innovation/action/applied

What type of intervention strategy is used in your initiative?:

Living lab/pilot

Please indicate the Technology Readiness Level (TRL) of your initiative:

Prototype and implementation: level 7-9

Who executes the initiative:

HospitalPrimary health care providers›NurseProvider of informal careResearch/educational settingResidential long-term care facilities

What is the relevant physical scale of your initiative?:

European levelInternational levelNational level

Please indicate how you think your initiative could be scaled up (made to reach more people):

The project has undertaken important exploitation initiatives to foster market uptake: - collaboration with a US based startup active in the field of eHealth and elderly care - spin-offs have been founded from partners to capitalise on the results of the project and bring the research results to the market (and therefore reach more people) - The establishment of a spin-off with the participation with more partners (a joint exploitation initiative) could also boost market uptake and increase market reach as the value of the initiative is proven and already running in pilots for more than one year.

Please indicate the type of stakeholders concerned with your initiative.:

End-usersHospitalPrimary health care providers›NursePrivate company›Small and medium-sized enterprises (SME)Provider of informal careResearch/educational setting

Please describe how you think your initiative could be transferred to other regions or contexts:

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 to assist independent living and clinical interventions. The procedure is independent from cultural particularities both in hospital and home environments and therefore as there is now experience from various settings in various EU countries the necessary know-how is available for transfer to other regions.

Is your initiative economically sustainable and does it contribute to economic development?:

Until October 2015 the project is funded from the European Commission. There is an ongoing exploitation effort that aspires to make the initiative economically sustainable. The main assets of the project (Dem@Lab, Dem@Nursing Home, Dem@Home and MyLifeStory) have been identified and sustainable business models and market studies have been developed.

If you selected "other" neighbourhood, please specify::

Impact & outcome

Will you collect or have you collected outcome data for this initiative?:

Yes

What do you consider the key success factors of your initiative? If your initiative has not yet started, please indicate what you expect the key success factors to be:

Socio-economical benefits 1) Not biased and objective clinical assessment 2) 24/7 personalized feedback and support to patients 3) Delay hospitalization 4) Reduce healthcare costs 5) Enhance feeling of security both for patients and their families 6) Improve cognitive and physical condition of patients 7) Customizable and adaptable to any Ambient Assisted Living environment, sensor set and target group

What do you consider the main barriers to overcome in your initiative? If your initiative has not yet started, please indicate what you expect the main barriers to be.:

1) Innovative technological and clinical approaches that have not previously tested 2) Lack of participation in pilots 3) Participants' motivation and engagement

What instruments will you use/have used to collect data?:

If you selected "other" instrument to collect data, please specify:

If yes, how will you/have you collected those data?:

Observational studiesQualitative evaluation

Will you collect or have collected socio-economic impact data for this initiative?:

Will or are the collected data in the initiative publicly available?: