Workshop 2
Journeys to Engagement: Ambient Technologies for People with Dementia
Tuesday, November 28, 2017
2:00 - 3:15 pm
Pier 2 & 3
Many people living with dementia are under-stimulated, socially isolated, and sedentary. This inactive lifestyle contributes to the prevalence of responsive behaviours (e.g., hitting), which may lead to overmedication and poor quality of life. Ambient Activity Technologies (AAT) are wall-mounted interactive tool designed for people with dementia. In this presentation, we discuss the background and rationale for the design of AATs, including live interactive demonstrations. We will also describe the pretest-posttest summative evaluation of one of our AAT products, which is currently underway at six long-term care (LTC) facilities across Ontario, Canada. We initially recruited 36 residents, 24 family members, and 78 staff. For residents, preliminary results (pretest vs. posttest1) demonstrated a significant reduction in agitation, paranoia/delusions, aggressiveness, anxiety and phobia, as well as a significant improvement in cognition (ps ≤ .053). Final results will be described, as well as best practices for implementation of AAT in LTC environments.