Overview

The Alzheimer Gesellschaft München is an institution for self-help and representation of interests of 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. Through the co-creation network M:UniverCity the cooperation with the DTLab was established.

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

It also applies for people with dementia that technical aids and devices equipped with artificial intelligence, e.g. smartphones and speech recognition systems such as "Alexa", are increasingly finding their ways into their everyday lives. It is therefore important for them to be involved in the development of technology. Only then will devices emerge that will actually benefit them.

Problem

The students of the course "Software Engineering I" asked themselves the following two core questions:

• Which technical solutions can help people with dementia and/or relatives and professionals?
• Besides risks, does digitalisation also have the potential to support the everyday life of people with dementia, especially in the early stages, so that they can lead a self-determined life for longer?

The potential of the voice-controlled assistance system "Alexa" in the environment of people with dementia was then investigated using prototypical applications.

Approach

With the support of Amazon Web Services, the students went through the innovation process "Working Backwards". Part of the process was an interview with a man affected by dementia, who answered important questions about his life and how he dealt with the disease. The students then entered the information they received into so-called empathy maps, that were meant to show the influence of the disease on those affected and their families.

The interview showed the students how it becomes increasingly difficult for dementia patiens during the course of the disease to correctly recall and process complex processes.

To find concrete solutions to this problem in the form of Alexa applications, the students used the "Crazy-Eight-Ideation"-method. The best idea per team was then elaborated in more detail with the help of a fictitious newspaper article ("Press Release") and FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions). The solutions developed for this problem rely on easy-to-use and interactive flow charts and instructions. In the prototype phase, documentation and implementation was done according to Scrum, so that a total of five prototypes were created for this challenge.

The advantages of a voice assistant include the ability to give instructions to the patient during a procedure, on demand or even proactively. For some procedures, it is also useful to document them vocally, e.g. to provide support for nursing staff.

Assistants can also be particularly helpful if they act not only as soon as they are addressed by the patient, but also when external events occur, such as leaving the house or a certain time of day. By integrating further sources of information such as the weather forecast, even better assistance could be provided, e.g. by linking the weather forecast with the memory of an umbrella.

Prototypes

For this subject area, the students created five different prototypes for possible Alexa applications. The prototypes can be found on Amazon.de and are currently in the beta testing phase. As soon as one of the applications is released, it can be activated and tested via the "Skills" section on the website.

Next steps

The prototypes were discussed at the board meeting of the Alzheimer Society in February 2020. The Alzheimer Society is now trying to apply for financial support to further develop one of the applications created.