Technology improves caregiver experience for families dealing with dementia

Technology is available to help with almost every facet of modern life, including help preventing people with dementia to wander and to warn their carers when they do.

Studies have shown that this technology, which usually includes portable devices with a GPS and in the same way non-invasive sensors the emotional tension of those who take care of a family member with dementia.

This is important, given that around 6.9 million Americans aged 65 and older live with Alzheimer’s disease, and the percentages of Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia increase. Moreover, caregivers of people with dementia experience more stress and poorer physical and mental health compared to others.

So far, little is known about how dementia caregivers use these products and how useful they find them.

Now, new insight into user satisfaction with such a brand theora Concern-Is available, thanks to a pilot study financed by the Texas Alzheimer’s Research and Care Consortium and led by researchers from the Texas A&M University School of Public Health.

The Theora Care System offers a portable device for the person with dementia, which is accompanied by a smartphone application that warns the caretaker if the person has strayed. The system also makes communication between the two possible.

“This focus on increasing situational consciousness for both the caregiver and the person with dementia is a new innovation in this type of technology,” said Matthew Lee Smith, PhD, a professor of health behavior that helped to study. “Our goal was to find out how useful care providers found this technology and their general satisfaction with it.”

In addition to Smith, the team consisted of Texas A&M Researchers Marcia G. Ory, PhD, Regents and Distinguished Professor, and Employee Ashley D. Wilson and postdoctoral colleague Chung Lin Kew-All at the Center for Community Health and Aging-and-and-Collegas of the University Van Noord -Texas, University of Texas on the Austin Dell Medical School and University of Utah.

Their study, which was implemented from 1 September 2018 to 31 December 2021, included 41 dyades consisting of people who live with dementia and their caregivers at three locations in Texas. The average age of the care providers was 66 years, 78.7 percent were female, 95.2 percent were white and 61.9 percent had at least a four -year university diploma. The average age of the care recipients was 76.77 years, 57.6 percent were male, 96.8 percent were white and 58.7 percent had at least a four -year university degree.

About 79 percent of care providers reported life with their care receiver, who was their spouse or partner (66.7 percent) or older (28.6 percent). They also reported that she provides an average of 5.7 hours a day of care provision.

Those who received care then wore a GPS-based device (which looked like a smartwatch) that also had an SOS emergency call function. Their care providers have downloaded a smartphone application that informed them of the location of their care recipient, established physical boundaries that smartphone reports have activated when they are crossed and made immediate communication with care recipients who wander around.

After three months of using the system, the caregivers completed a telephone interview in which they provided information about how often they used the system and the tracking, “safe zone” and two -sided call functions. They also gave feedback on the ease of use of the system, usefulness in care provision and their general satisfaction.

On average, care providers with higher Baseline Zarit Burden interview scores found the system more useful with their care provision and were more satisfied with the system. “

Matthew Lee Smith, PhD, professor of health behavior, Texas A&M University School of Public Health

He added that their satisfaction can result from their perception that these technology -based solutions reduce the stressors associated with vigilance and fear of wandering.

A large percentage of care providers (70 percent) reported that their care receiver was wearing the portable device daily. Healthcare providers reported less frequent daily use of the smartphone location tracking, geo-fencing or two-way call functions (from 39 percent to 17.1 percent).

Smith said that this suggests that caregivers benefited from knowing the person who lived with dementia, and that there were fewer daily needs for some system functions.

“Although more studies are needed, these findings are encouraging,” said Smith. “They indicate that technological solutions for multiple components can be assumed and can benefit both care providers and people with dementia.”