Co-design of a TV-based home support for early stage of dementia

This article describes the work done to create an innovative system to support people with Mild Cognitive Impairment or Mild Dementia. The basic idea of the system is to exploit an extremely simple and familiar technology for older people, namely television (TV). In fact, the TV-AssistDem system exploits the smart-TV technology to provide a series of support services, among which the connection via video conference with healthcare professional or with relatives and friends; monitoring of vital parameters; cognitive stimulation and reminders of important medicines and appointments. The article describes the co-design approach of the prototype pursued during the project which involves a constant and repeated involvement of potential users of the system over time. The refined prototype of TV-AssistDem went under an ecological test in the homes of representative users to assess its robustness and compliance to users needs. The additional objective of the work is to carry out a long-term study that involves the realisation of a clinical trial in two European countries (Spain and Romania) aimed at showing the validity of the proposed solution on the patient’s quality of life but also on caregivers and socio-healthcare systems.