Participatory Research to Design a Novel Telehealth System to Support the Night-Time Needs of People with Dementia: NOCTURNAL

International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health

Suzanne Martin²  Juan Carlos Augusto¹  Paul Mc Cullagh³  William Carswell³  Huiru Zheng³  Haiying Wang³  Jonathan Wallace³ 

[1] School of Science and Technology, Middlesex University London, England NW4 4BT, UK; E-Mail:;Faculty of Life and Health Sciences, University of Ulster, Northern Ireland BT37 0QB, UK;Faculty of Computing and Mathematics, University of Ulster, Northern Ireland BT37 0QB, UK; E-Mails:

关键词: dementia;    ambient assisted living;    participatory design;   

DOI  :  10.3390/ijerph10126764

来源: mdpi

【 摘 要 】

Strategies to support people living with dementia are broad in scope, proposing both pharmacological and non-pharmacological interventions as part of the care pathway. Assistive technologies form part of this offering as both stand-alone devices to support particular tasks and the more complex offering of the “smart home” to underpin ambient assisted living. This paper presents a technology-based system, which expands on the smart home architecture, orientated to support people with daily living. The system, NOCTURNAL, was developed by working directly with people who had dementia, and their carers using qualitative research methods. The research focused primarily on the nighttime needs of people living with dementia in real home settings. Eight people with dementia had the final prototype system installed for a three month evaluation at home. Disturbed sleep patterns, night-time wandering were a focus of this research not only in terms of detection by commercially available technology but also exploring if automated music, light and visual personalized photographs would be soothing to participants during the hours of darkness. The NOCTURNAL platform and associated services was informed by strong user engagement of people with dementia and the service providers who care for them. NOCTURNAL emerged as a holistic service offering a personalised therapeutic aspect with interactive capabilities.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© 2013 by the authors; licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.