Smart Self Care for Dementia

Enabling Self-Care and Shared Decision on Making for People Living with Dementia is funded by the SFI Frontiers of the Future Programme.

Dr. Dympna O’Sullivan, alongside her Co-Investigator, Dr Julie Doyle, Director of NetwellCASALA at Dundalk Institute of Technology are developing cutting edge technology to support persons with dementia to live independently in their own homes by self-managing their care.

Currently there is limited involvement of people with dementia in the design of technology to support their care and we believe strongly that persons with dementia should be at the centre of decision-making about their care. This project aims to develop a computerized solution to support people with dementia to remain healthy and live independently. The solution will be developed in collaboration with persons with dementia and the Alzheimer’s Society of Ireland. It will integrate techniques from Human-Computer Interaction to develop an intelligent user interface specifically designed for persons with dementia, from the Internet of Things to create an activity monitoring framework for the home environment and from Machine Learning to implement models for human activity recognition.  

The research will have wide societal impact in Ireland where an estimated 55,000 people are currently living with dementia. The impacts will be twofold, an abundance of research shows that persons with dementia are better off at home – by maintaining the ability to be in control of their own care for as long as possible, persons with dementia remain healthier for longer. Homecare allows persons with dementia to prosper while at the same time frees up hospital beds and saves healthcare costs.”