Overview

The Alzheimer Society Munich is an organisation for self-help and representation of interests for people with dementia, their relatives and caregivers from their social environment. The joint commitment of relatives, volunteers and representatives of various professional groups supports domestic systems for people with dementia, including outpatient, day-care and inpatient services. The collaboration with the DTLab was initiated via the co-creation network M:UniverCity.

On a socio-political level, the Alzheimer Society works for greater understanding and helpfulness among the public and thus contributes to increasing acceptance and integration of people with dementia.

The base for this challenge was the increasing use of technology in our everyday lives. Technical aids like smartphones or web apps are able to provide help in a lot of different situations and we have used this matter of course in this challenge to see in what form they can provide support for people affected by dementia.

Problem

What technical solutions can help people with dementia and/or relatives and professionals?

Digital technologies offer great potential to support people with dementia in different stages. For example, by allowing them to lead a self-determined life as long as possible. In addition to the challenge of providing simple and intuitive user interfaces, support systems also have to deliver a recognisable value for affected patients. The challenge examined this question open-ended.

Approach

During the challenge, eight teams of the course "Software Engineering I" (B.Sc. Computer Science) created prototype apps and web apps aimed at people with early-stage dementia.

To find concrete solutions to the problem, the students used the innovation process "Working Backwards". Since this process is used at Amazon, the students also received help from Amazon Web Services (AWS). Prior to this, the students interviewed a person suffering from dementia and collected the useful information they received in so-called "Empathy Maps" with sections for patients, relatives and other people of their social environment.

Ideas for apps were developed by using the "Crazy-Eight-Ideation"-technique. The idea that received the highest rating of each specific team was elaborated further with the help of a fictitious newspaper article (called "press release") and FAQs. In the prototype phase the ideas of the different teams were then implemented and documented according to Scrum, a project organization method popular in agile software development.

The results were the following:

• An app, as launcher, that greatly simplifies the user interface to make it easier for people with dementia to use their smartphone
• An app that helps finding known routes in case a dementia patient has orientation difficulties
• A learning app to further identify important and self-defined people and to train the memory for faces and names
• An app with textual and video descriptions of everyday processes that works with QR codes that can be attached to frequently used objects
• An app with location-based checklists to remind dementia patients which activities they had planned, based on their position
• An app to help people who left a certain localization area to find their way around, e.g. to find their way home
• A web app to contact other dementia patients, to form a network and to provide mutual support
• An app to help dementia patients while they are shopping, e.g. to identify and find certain goods

Each team developed an executable prototype. Feedback was obtained from patients, relatives and employees of the Alzheimer Society during the course of the project and in the end.