Dementia and Technology

The technical aids to enable elderly people to live at home for longer do not differ so much from those that can be used to help dementia sufferers and their home carers in the home situation. The difference lies primarily with the videophone (although this could also improve social contact for non-dementia sufferers) and the GPS wandering detection techniques. In a home situation with a dementia sufferer, the emphasis is primarily on offering support to the carer, who may or may not live in the home. Furthermore, we have seen that home care with technical support is around €150 per week cheaper than admission to a care institution.

There are already many separate techniques, but they are generally standalone. Much work has to be done on compatibility, integration and standards in the near future so that the supply of technical aids for home care for dementia sufferers can get beyond the research level and subsidised projects, in order to bring about modular standard equipment that can be installed in the home of every dementia sufferer. This means that there is still a lot of work to be done.