Research Vision: Helping People with Mild Dementia Navigate Through Their Day

There are few studies where people with dementia themselves describe their needs, but those carried out indicate that the most frequently identified unmet needs are in the areas of information (on treatment, care and support, appointments), memory problems, and communication and psychological distress. The challenging aim of our research agenda is to breakthrough with research that addresses these needs, for the percentage of those with mild dementia in Europe. At about 2% of the elderly population, this equates to around 1,900,000 people. In order to achieve our aim, practically this means helping people navigate through their day. This entails cognitive reinforcement, and may be expressed as the social objectives of our research for the needs of people with mild dementia, helping people to remember, maintain social contact, perform daily life activities and enhance their feelings of safety. Our technical objective is to research and prototype a portable, remotely-configurable, user-validated cognitive prosthetic device, together with associated services for people with mild dementia.