Smart homes for people with Alzheimer's disease

Abstract

Smart home technologies constitute a potential solution to allow people with Alzheimer's disease (AD) to remain in their home. These intelligent houses contain technological devices aiming to provide adapted cognitive assistance (prompts) when needed. However, a literature review of the field revealed a predominant use of verbal prompts with little knowledge about their real effectiveness. To contribute solving this important issue, we propose, in this paper, comprehensive guidelines to help smart homes researchers to maximize the efficiency by adapting the form of prompts to the specific cognitive profiles of patients with AD. First, we identify the main deficits of AD that influence the effectiveness of prompts. Second, we details which prompting strategy to use accordingly. Third, we propose an experimental protocol, based on a well-known test, and a new prompting software, which allows to validate the proposed guidelines. Finally, we present the preliminary results of a first experiment conducted in our lab with participants having mild to moderate AD.