Assistive Technology Helps Dementia Sufferers Get Through the Day
From: ICT Results - 02/01/2010

European researchers have developed a system to address a range of different
needs of mild dementia patients and have devised a device to meet those
requirements. The COGKNOW project, developed by doctors and computer
scientists from the Netherlands, Sweden, and Northern Ireland, created
home-based and mobile devices, which dementia sufferers can use to make their
lives easier. Both the home-based device, a flat-screen monitor, and the
mobile device, a smartphone with a simplified user interface, use
touch-screen technology and are dedicated to the COGKNOW application. "The
application takes control of the device and makes it impossible for the user
to activate the more difficult-to-use functions of these devices," says the
project's scientific coordinator Johan Bengtsson. The system was field-tested
on user groups in three countries, and the majority of users and caregivers
reported significant improvement in their ability to get through the day. "If
COGNOW only extends people's ability to look after themselves for an extra
few months, then the savings are still potentially billions of euros,"
Bengtsson says. 

Read the entire article at:
http://cordis.europa.eu/ictresults/index.cfm?section=news&tpl=article&BrowsingType=Features&ID=91139

Link:
COGKNOW
http://www.cogknow.eu/