User-Centricity in the Development of Services for People with Mild Dementia

A main goal in the care of persons with dementia is enhancing their autonomy in daily life, by providing compensation for their disabilities. In the last decade another important aspect in caring for people with dementia has been recognized: enhancement of their quality of life. This has led to an increased interest in the way persons with dementia experience their disease and how to optimize their quality of life. The Ambient Intelligence vision foresees a world where people live in intelligent surroundings that can respond to and even anticipate people’s wishes and needs. Ambient Intelligence is likely to provide major benefits for the individual patient. Our health is maintained in a complex process of social interaction, involving professional care practitioners, lay carers, health insurers, regulators, producers and governmental bodies. A user centric approach is needed to guarantee an added value also for the user. In this paper, a user centric design approach and its application in a field test is presented towards the development of assistive services for people with dementia.

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