Assistive system for elders suffering of dementia

Abstract

This work proposes an innovative information home support system to be established at the houses of people suffering from dementia. The main innovations of the system are its transparent character that overcomes the need for training of the patient, as well as the exploitation of a well-known technique for dementia, namely music therapy. It addresses the need of people suffering from dementia as well as their familiars to be recognized by them and have better interaction and collaboration. The system offers a ubiquitous recognition system, just by using smart devices like smart-phones or smart-wristbands. When a familiar person is detected in the house, then a sound file is reproduced on smart speakers placed in the house, in order to trigger the memory, based on the principles of music therapy. To the best of the authors' knowledge, this is the first system of its kind ever reported in the literature, and in this work, the hardware part is mainly presented. © 2018 IEEE.