Volunteers of all ages will be needed
In marking World Alzheimer’s Day tomorrow, local researchers are looking for solutions to the challenging issue of people with dementia wandering off.
The research, which includes wearable devices that use electronic monitoring, has already involved patients at the early stages of dementia residing at St Vincent de Paul (SVDP).
It will continue at the University of Malta’s Faculty of ICT Mark Weiser Lab, where simulations of the dangers of wandering will be studied, to improve the human activity recognition solutions the project is developing.
Volunteers of all ages will be needed to help build a large dataset, which will be available to various researchers working in this field.
In Malta, the number of people with dementia was estimated to be 5,301 in 2013 – equivalent to around 1.26 percent of the general population. As the population ages, this number will increase significantly, and it is projected that 9,883 individuals will have the condition by the year 2030.
Alzheimer’s disease is the most common cause of dementia. The reasons that patients wander off are unclear, and there is no one rule that fits all. The reasons behind patients wandering off remain unclear, and there is no one rule that fits all. Pervasive electronic monitoring (PEM) focuses on quality-of-life technology that makes use of devices that people can carry with them or wear.
It involves a mobile solution that accompanies the person with dementia and a technology-embedded environment in which the person lives, in this case, SVDP and the Mark Weiser Lab.
By collaborating with professional caregivers in all stages of the study, the researchers will improve their algorithms and report tools to better access real-time information about people with dementia. The study will provide carers with useful, real-time information about their patients’ status.
PEM is supported by the Research and Innovation Development Trust and Information Systems Limited in collaboration with SVDP and the university.
The research team is being led by Conrad Attard and includes Joseph Bonello from the Department of Computer Information Systems and Ronald Fiorentino from SVDP.
Several professionals from the hospital and undergraduate and post-graduate students from the Faculty of ICT are also involved.
Volunteers may send an e-mail to register their interest to the address volunteer@pem.space or conrad.attard@um.edu.mt.
