‘Everyday’ dementia tech can become more attainable

Dame Louise Robinson, Professor of Primary Care and Ageing at Newcastle University and a spokesperson for the Longitude Prize on Dementia, wrote a guest article for GP Online, highlighting how advances in technology are helping people with dementia live independently for longer – and how GPs will increasingly be recommending these solutions to patients in the years ahead. 

Meeting the evolving needs of dementia care

Non-drug prescriptions are by no means new to primary care, but in recent years, amidst the stresses of the pandemic and cost of living crisis, there has been a huge increase in social prescribing. This involves looking at a person’s non-medical needs and thinking holistically about the best way to support them. Dame Louise has long championed the ability of assistive technology to better support dementia patients, helping them to maintain their independence for longer rather than simply monitoring them. 

And new data from the Longitude Prize on Dementia indicates this thinking is becoming more common, with over two-thirds of GPs saying they are keen to be able to prescribe assistive technology to patients that have been diagnosed with dementia. A further two-thirds of family doctors said they already recommend tech-related hacks to patients to help them better manage their condition. 

The Longitude Prize on Dementia is helping to fulfill this growing demand by driving the creation of personalised technology-based tools co-created with people living with the early stages of dementia.  

How technology can help foster familiarity

Drawing on her years of research and clinical experience, Dame Louise makes the point that new devices need to look like something the patient actually uses in order for them to make a difference. 

She explains how the prize’s semi-finalists offer great examples of this. One team from the United Arab Emirates is creating a pair of smart glasses that will be fitted with facial recognition software to help people remember the names of loved ones. A UK-based team, meanwhile, is developing an augmented reality app that provides directions to help people navigate their local community independently.

The good news is that ‘everyday’ dementia tech is becoming more attainable. And as we see an increasingly tech-savvy ageing population, patients will be better able to use their devices, such as smart phones and smart speakers, to bolster their independence. 

In addition, as technology develops and AI becomes engrained, it presents an opportunity for the devices themselves to adapt to people’s changing conditions – filling the gaps as they forget elements of their daily routine, or specific words. 

Dame Louise outlines her hope that the coming years will see the development of more advanced dementia technologies, which – with the help of initiatives such as the Longitude Prize on Dementia – will become increasingly personalised and more widely recommended by GPs.  

Read the full article by Dame Louise in GP Online here