mobileWAY -- A System to Reduce the Feeling of Temporary Lonesomeness of Persons with Dementia and to Foster Inter-caregiver Collaboration

Abstract

This paper presents mobile WAY (mobile Where Are You), a system that enables caregivers of persons with dementia (PwD) to remotely display dynamic, customized and illustrated information on the home television of the PwD. In particular, caregivers can, through the use of a mobile device, provide information about their identity, their whereabouts and the time remaining until they return to the house of the PwD. When adequate, caregivers can also define an entertainment activity for the PwD. The development of mobile WAY followed an iterative and incremental user-centered design approach. Semi-structured interviews with nine informal and two professional caregivers furthered a literature review and a competitive analysis of the research projects around this scope. Building upon these, a low-fidelity prototype was created and iterated twice through usability testing with seven PwD and fourteen caregivers. Results show that PwD comprehend the displayed information and caregivers effectively use and recognize the usefulness of mobile WAY.