Sensor-based in-home monitoring of people with dementia using remote web technologies

The goal of ambient assisted living (AAL) is to help and support elderly persons to manage everyday activities using intelligent and pervasive computing technologies. One of the main issues regarding the support of people with dementia is designing and integrating user-centered AAL environments to assist these people in their daily life activities. These systems should enable people with cognitive impairments to optimize their cognitive functioning in the everyday context, in order to prevent or reduce excess disability, and thus improve quality of life and well-being. This paper presents the main elements of a sensor-based system to support the daily life of people suffering from Alzheimer disease (AD) and dementia. The system monitors the patients at their homes during the performance of daily activities. Different types of sensors are used for monitoring the patients, while a graphical user interface a) enables the clinicians to access and visualize the results and b) supports the patients through specific interventions. The sensor data is semantically integrated and analyzed using knowledge-driven interpretation techniques based on Semantic Web technologies. Overall, this paper presents the system, a 3-month pilot study with one participant and positive preliminary results.