On 4 February, scientists from the United Kingdom published an article on the outcomes of a new tool to monitor and report on the daily use of electronic devices such as the television or kettle. According to the developers, the aim of the tracking and reporting device is to provide reassurance to the caretaker that the person with dementia is up and using the connected device. The monitoring and reporting device sends a message to up to 10 contacts, but also transmits an alert if there is no activity recorded. As part of their pilot study, the researchers recruited 30 paired participants (person with dementia and family carer) who were surveyed for frailty, wellbeing, and perceived carer impact burden before and after using the device for four months.
The researchers reported that participants found the technology acceptable and useful to predict patterns of behaviour and deviations. In addition, the team noted that there was a reported reduction in burden workload for the family carer group. The scientists stressed that this finding was particularly significant as they had also measured an increase in frailty and decline in wellbeing among the participants who had dementia. Concluding, the researchers therefore noted that these findings might support the hypothesis that such remote monitoring could have the potential to reduce the concerns of family carers.
