Dementia-Friendly Home App May Help Caregivers and Sufferers

A new app can make the home dementia-friendly and reduce the burden of caregivers in improving the quality of life of patients suffering from the condition. Dementia-Friendly Home app uses an interactive 3D game technology that enables the carers and patients to virtually access their homes. The app allows them to browse through different rooms to locate furniture and other things quickly.

People with dementia find it difficult to perform everyday activities that hamper their quality of life. They also face spatial and visual disabilities which are not prominently recognized as memory loss. Therefore, this app can assist the person living with dementia.

The app has been developed by Deakin Software and Technology Innovation Laboratory in partnership with Alzheimer’s Australia Victoria. The app follows 10 "Dementia Enabling Environment Principles," developed by academics Richard Fleming and Kirsty Bennett of the University of Wollongong.

Many of the app suggestions are small, inexpensive ideas, such as placing labels with pictures on cupboard doors, installing motion sensors that turn lights on and off when people walk through the house and changing patterned wall or floor coverings.

“Changes in the brain can [affect] day to day functions and potentially confuse people living with dementia. Identifying ways the home and environment can be modified to ameliorate any challenges will make a difference to the person living with dementia,” said Maree McCabe, CEO of Alzheimer’s Australia Vic.

Source-Medindia