Users requirements in the design of a virtual agent for patients with dementia and their caregivers

Abstract

Over 50 million people worldwide are living with dementia and it is expected that this will double every 20 years. With our project "Living well with Anne" we aim to develop a virtual agent, called Anne which can help people with dementia to continue living independently in their own homes and support their caregivers in their caring tasks. The project started in June 2017 and will last 3 years. Using a user-centered approach, the virtual agent will be developed so that it can progressively meet the needs of the people as the level of dementia changes. The project has already undertaken some work related to the end-user needs and requirements which will be followed by extensive field trials. This paper reports on the results of the first part of our project: end-user and stakeholder requirements analysis. This requirement analysis has been obtained through focus groups which were held at end-user organizations in Italy and Luxembourg. Results show that Anne can be useful to help people with dementia to continue living independently at home given specific adjustments. It may have an impact on the Quality of Life of both the users and (by proxy) their caregivers but its relevance needs to be explored in more detail within the forthcoming field trials.