How innovators should create new tech for people with dementia

Guest Blog by Professor Martin Orrell, Director of the Institute of Mental Health

There are a lot of ways technology can make life better.

At the moment, there’s an explosion of new tech, a bit like a gold rush with innovators hoping their work is the next big thing and something transformative.

The particular challenge with dementia is that it is not quite as definable.

With the space race there’s a moon and the goal was to get to it first. Working with dementia, what we need to achieve is harder to pin down – what a really good solution looks like and how to achieve it is open for debate.

The main consideration should be hearing what people with dementia themselves have got to say about it and what differences it makes to their lives and to the people who care for them. In the end, it’s about actually coming up with solutions that make a difference for the people with dementia themselves. Something that doesn’t undermine their autonomy, dignity or their human rights. Tools to help people feel more independent and more in control.

Everyday tech issues for people with dementia

It’s a fine line to walk and requires an understanding of the experience of dementia. Some tech designed to keep people safer might make things more difficult or more risky for people with dementia. For example, technology that helps people manage their money with a PIN code – if people can’t remember their PIN code, how are they going to access their accounts? Perhaps they will write it down or have someone help them, but that’s not particularly safe or sustainable.

In the same way, supermarkets are not necessarily designed to help people navigate and orient themselves at what they want to buy in a timely way. If the shop rearranges where things are, as they often do, people can have difficulty finding what they need. And of course, that makes it more difficult for people with dementia. It’s designed to make you spend more time and money, but it’s not accessible.

Undignified technologies

Early technology such as a wearable call pendant where you push a button to raise the alarm didn’t look very nice to wear, and was also stigmatising. Monitoring systems that track people’s locations need to be carefully considered and used with protection of people’s decisions and rights. People with dementia may use these because of pressure from their family, but that does not mean they are dignified.

We need things that are less stigmatising. Tech where people feel it’s actually a tool that can help them, but without singling them out. We need to understand what people with dementia prefer – and it’s got to have a sense that they’re empowered.

We have an opportunity to drive change in the dementia space

I’m hoping the Longitude Prize on Dementia will successfully raise awareness and communicate about these issues, facilitating more personalised needs for people with dementia. We don’t have an in-depth understanding of how people with dementia use technology at the moment. I believe that collaboration, sharing expertise, supporting young researchers and looking into the technologies that we all already use will be essential for the future.

We don’t necessarily need completely new assistive technology. We need to be thinking about how people with dementia are already using their smartphones – what functions are helpful for them? How can we adapt already existing technology and personalise it for use?

It is also generally harder to get people to use a new technology, rather than adapting something that already exists. There are so many already existing opportunities. If we can understand how things work at the moment and what the gaps are, then that’s really useful information to build upon.

Useful and engaging

I’m really interested in how people with dementia are using technology at the moment and whether there’s ways of enhancing that. There are a lot of apps out there already, but do they stick around? We did a research review five years ago about the best available technology and found much of the tech was not adopted.

This will be one of the big challenges. It can’t just be a smart idea, it has to be something that people want to continue to utilise because it’s useful and engaging.

Collaboration is key

The EU funded dementia care technology networks I’ve been involved in have worked widely across sectors. This includes Alzheimer’s organisations, the World Health Organisation and a number of small companies, academics, clinicians, PhD students, and other health care workers. This has shown the importance of bringing together a wide diversity of people interested in dementia, alongside people with dementia (many of whom are using technology already), family carers, people from the industry in the health and social care sector and people in the academic sector.

We also need diverse groups of people to be thinking about aspects of stigma, human rights and empowerment. It’s about understanding what happens when someone comes up with a solution or piece of technology and it goes into somebody’s house. If people don’t like it, they might just turn it off. It can’t be something that’s just offered without consultation or imposed on them. It needs to be done with them.

How a prize encourages innovators to help the aging population

The Longitude Prize on Dementia is a good focal point for people because it will cast light on the issues people with dementia face, but also some solutions. It’s a bit like the Great British Bake-Off – only one team of innovators win this international prize, but there’ll be a number of finalists. The impact this has then spreads further, bringing together groups of really amazing people with fantastic ideas that have a prospect of changing the landscape of technology. It can make a transformative difference.

I’m very excited about this prize and what the spirit of innovation can offer. It could be a catalyst in this space for more thoughtful work and research investment in useful technologies.