Assistive technology megatrends to support persons with Alzheimers disease and related dementias age in habitat: Challenges for usability, engineering and public policy* Conference Paper uri icon

abstract

  • 2018 Association for Computing Machinery. Alzheimers disease and related dementias (ADRD) are debilitating neurodegenerative disorders affecting one in every ten older Americans. In the United States, roughly 35.6 million Americans have dementia and approximately 5.7 million have Alzheimers. By 2050, the count is expected to increase to 13.2 million older Americans. Alzheimers is the top sixth cause of death in the U.S. People with ADRD face substantial challenges adapting to their physical, psychological and social environments. Like cognitively-intact older adults, ADRD persons prefer to age in place in a familiar environment. However, aging in ones own habitat comes with the potential for loneliness, social isolation, and the consequences of impaired mobility that threaten the displacement of ADRD persons to non-preferred living arrangements. The decrease in multi-generational living and increase in nuclear family living calls for innovative solutions to promote safe mobility, independence, decision making and communication for persons with ADRD. Assistive technologies (ATs) if user friendly and properly engineered for persons with ADRD, hold the potential to enhance daily functioning and improve the quality of life for ADRD persons in living habitats of their choices. This review paper aims to discuss existing and emerging AT megatrends in the Internet of things (loT) era. Five technological megatrends are examined: assistive robots (e.g. assistance in daily activities, social robots for communication, telepresence robots for social connectedness), biometric sensors and movement sensor technologies (IMURs) for gait and walkability (e.g. non-wearable sensors), multimodal interaction systems for early disease detection, augmented reality systems that

published proceedings

  • Proceedings of the Human-Habitat for Health (H3): Human-Habitat Multimodal Interaction for Promoting Health and Well-Being in the Internet of Things era - 20th ACM International Conference on Multimodal Interaction, ICMI 2018

author list (cited authors)

  • Zanwar, P., Heyn, P. C., McGrew, G., & Raji, M.

complete list of authors

  • Zanwar, Preeti||Heyn, Patricia C||McGrew, Greg||Raji, Mukaila