Technology Solution Report
2. Summary of Conclusions from Industry Analysis
While the progress of Alzheimer’s disease can range from 6 to 20 years. During 60% of these years (4 to 12 years) the person with Alzheimer’s is active, social and concerned about independence and autonomy (Gauthier, 2002). These are the early and mid-stage years of the disease and only in the end of life stage is the person more concerned about basic comfort and is likely to be institutionalized.
The solution’s aim is to help the person regain autonomy during the early and mid-stage progression of the disease and improve the person’s quality of life at home. It is crucial that these individuals stay at home as long as possible with better quality of life. This is because there is a great increase in healthcare costs to the individual and to the government when the person is institutionalized.
Furthermore, the caregiver is constantly burdened emotionally and physically during the course of the disease’s progression. Typically, the caregiver is a spouse or child of the person living with Alzheimer’s and has other laborious chores such as earning wages for the family and taking care of younger family members. The caregiver is often unable to communicate the progress of the disease to a physician and therapist. To this day, no researchers have been able to collect contextually rich data about the disease’s day to day impact on the family. Also, caregiver burnout is one of the main reasons for a person with Alzheimer’s to get institutionalized.
Through our extensive research we were able to narrow the focus to the problem of quality of life and caregiver burden. Research based applications about “Video Feedback” and “Behavior Control” are supported by science in systems engineering and human factors. Human factors research has proven that feedback about purpose, performance and process is essential to any human endeavor. In Alzheimer’s disease, short term memory loss hinders with the person’s ability to:
Remember the purpose of doing an activity;
Track their own performance during the activity with respect to an expected outcome;
Follow a process without deviation due to a loss of contextual information contained in short term memory.
When the current solution of audio and video feedback was tested with persons living with Alzheimer’s, as proposed by control theory, appropriate signaling mechanisms about purpose, performance and process were restored. This enables the person to regain self-reliance, independence and autonomy while alleviating the caregiver from constant vigilance.
solution is the only approach (as product isn’t commercialized yet) currently available in the market that views the person