Designing Personalized Therapy Tools for People with Dementia

Abstract

Non-pharmacological interventions for people with dementia benefit from the usage of personalized materials. These are not always easy to obtain. In a set of formative studies, we looked at how clinical staff and families recur to the usage of biographical elements to stimulate and foster the self-identity of people with dementia. Results showed that these stakeholders cherish biographically-rich information although it is often hard to obtain relevant materials. We present the iterative design of Scrapbook, a web platform that supports psychologists in the process of collecting meaningful information about a person, and applying it in reminiscence and cognitive stimulation sessions. A 3-phase deployment in a clinical setting allowed us to evolve the platform to respond to stakeholder requirements. Findings include a positive view of the developed features (e.g., biography-enriched games, caregiver app, group therapy) but also an underwhelming usage of the platform. We discuss the adoption, usage patterns, and feedback collected from clinicians, seeking to inform the design of personalized, i.e. biographically-rich, tools for therapy settings.