Pervasive Technology-Enabled Care and Support for People with Dementia: The State of Art and Research Issues

TL;DR

This paper surveys how pervasive technologies like AI and IoT are used to support dementia patients, analyzing current research, challenges, and future directions for improving care, wellness, and active living.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive review of existing pervasive technology applications in dementia care and discusses key challenges and future research avenues.

Findings

Pervasive tech supports care, wellness, and active living for dementia patients.

Challenges include accessibility, usability, and affordability of technology.

Future directions emphasize integrated, holistic, and connected healthcare solutions.

Abstract

Dementia is a mental illness that people live with all across the world. No one is immune. Nothing can predict its onset. The true story of dementia remains unknown globally, partly due to the denial of dementia symptoms and partly due to the social stigma attached to the disease. In recent years, dementia as a mental illness has received a lot of attention from the scientific community and healthcare providers. This paper presents a state of art survey of pervasive technology enabled care and support for people suffering from Alzheimers dementia. We identify three areas of pervasive technology support for dementia patients, focusing on care, wellness and active living. A critical analysis of existing research is presented here, exploring how pervasive computing, artificial intelligence (AI) and the Internet of Things (IoT) are already supporting and providing comfort to dementia patients, particularly those living alone in the community. The work discusses key challenges and limitations of technology-enabled support owing to reasons like lack of accessibility, availability, usability and affordability of technology, limited holistic care approach, and lack of education and information. Future research directions focusing on how pervasive and connected healthcare can better support the well being and mental health impacts of Alzheimers dementia are also highlighted.