Participatory Research to Design a Novel Telehealth System to Support the Night-Time Needs of People with Dementia: NOCTURNAL

Suzanne Martin, Juan Carlos Augusto, PJ McCullagh, William Carswell, H Zheng, HY Wang, JG Wallace, Maurice Mulvenna

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

38 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Strategies to support people living with dementia are broad in scope, proposing both pharmacological and non-pharmacological interventions as part of the care pathway. Assistive technologies form part of this offering as both stand-alone devices to support particular tasks and the more complex offering of the “smart home” to underpin ambient assisted living. This paper presents a technology-based system, which expands on the smart home architecture, orientated to support people with daily living. The system, NOCTURNAL, was developed by working directly with people who had dementia, and their carers using qualitative research methods. The research focused primarily on the nighttime needs of people living with dementia in real home settings. Eight people with dementia had the final prototype system installed for a three month evaluation at home. Disturbed sleep patterns, night-time wandering were a focus of this research not only in terms of detection by commercially available technology but also exploring if automated music, light and visual personalized photographs would be soothing to participants during the hours of darkness. The NOCTURNAL platform and associated services was informed by strong user engagement of people with dementia and the service providers who care for them. NOCTURNAL emerged as a holistic service offering a personalised therapeutic aspect with interactive capabilities.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)6764-6782
JournalInternational Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health
Volume10
Issue number12
DOIs
Publication statusPublished (in print/issue) - 2013

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Participatory Research to Design a Novel Telehealth System to Support the Night-Time Needs of People with Dementia: NOCTURNAL'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this