This project is about designing a tool to help informal caregivers provide better dementia care experiences for the people-with-dementia. There are many different non-pharmacological interventions that can be applied to help deal with the symptoms of dementia. Both understanding the knowledge of non-pharmacological interventions and knowing the people-with-dementia is necessary for informal caregivers to personalized apply these interventions during the daily care. This project is researching this topic and developing a tool to support informal caregivers. The project follows the double-diamond model. Discover: desk research, context inquiry, in-depth interview and collage were applied and different stakeholders were involved to dig deeper into the research questions. Define: The research results were summarized and the design problem, target users and use scenario were defined. Develop: Multiple concepts were created and evaluated by the Objective Weighted during the develop phase. Deliver: One concept was chosen to further detailed, evaluated, iterated and finally delivered. The outcome is a platform, which is an app, for informal caregivers to search and learn dementia-related knowledge and discuss with each other or with the experts. Users can learn different non-pharmacological interventions and knacks on the platform as well.

BPSD (Behaviour and psychological symptoms of Dementia) is a progressive symptom infecting PwD’s well-being and cause stress to care givers. It results from unmet needs in different aspects. A personalized care plan is demanding to be made iteratively to meeting the individual needs of the each patient. It is made by the care team and guides the care givers to fulfill PwD’s needs and manage BPSD. Location data can reveal contextual information can improve communication. It has been applied in industries like public transportation and commercials. With the revealed information from location data, people can make actionable decisions. While in dementia care, location data bas not been widely applied. This project investigates the value of location data in nursing home. It begins with literature review around location data and care planning communication. The care planning process is studied to build the structure of what care plan is and main factors affecting communication are identified as the guidance of field study After literature research, two rounds of field research was conducted to understand how the care plan is made in the nursing home. A focus group was firstly held to map out the information systems in the process. Also the unmet needs of the care team communication during the process and opportunities to apply location data are identified. Then interview and observation on the main activities of care planning are done to see how the care team go through all the tasks. The insights are categorized based on influencing factors found from literature. Parallel research on the insights of location data is also conducted. Three brainstorming sessions are held and small ideas on how the location insights can be used are also generated. More literature research on the the needs of PwD and management of BPSD is done. Hypothesises are formulated to identify what location insights can actually help the BPSD management in care planning. The hypothesis test proves location information can be helpful in providing a more efficient communication experience in care planning. The needs location data can help address are sleep disorder, stress management, socialization and life safety. A data analytics platform is design for supporting the caregivers to report and communicate with other care professionals.

This project aims to improving the care service for people with dementia who exhibits BPSD (Behavioral and Psychological Symptoms of Dementia) by providing the relevant stakeholders data insights, and meanwhile improving these people’s working efficiency.

This project focuses on contributing to a feeling of connectedness for people in the mid to late stages of dementia living in a nursing home. Feeling connected is still important for people living with dementia. They may suffer from disabilities caused by their disease, losing their memory and ability to make decisions, but there are also things that are not likely to be affected by dementia. A person with dementia stays capable of feeling negative emotions, like fear and pain, and positive emotions, like interest and happiness. Therefore, it is important to contribute to feelings of connectedness, to support emotional well-being.
My framework on connectedness identifies that, based on universal human needs, connectedness can be divided into three types: social, personal and physical connectedness. Fulfilling one or more of the human needs related to a type of connectedness, leads to an increased feeling of being socially, personally or physically connected. People with moderate to severe dementia living in a nursing home, spend of their time in static environments every day. This means that they are surrounded by static objects and non-responsive, apathetic fellow residents. These static environments cause people to become apathetic or restless, which negatively impacts all three types of connectedness and hereby decreases emotional well-being. As the moments where people spend time in static environments happen when care givers are busy with their caring duties, I envision to offer something for these moments that can be used by a resident without the help of care givers and can be used individually, without the need for fellow residents. Therefore, this project focusses on the individual side of connectedness: personal and physical connectedness. The goal is to design a playful product that enables moments of physical and personal connectedness for people in the mid to late stages of dementia, to support emotional well-being in static nursing home environments. To guide the design process, the following interaction vision was created: the interaction should feel like playing with a ladybug: proactive, lively, explorative, enchanting, subtle and open-ended. In an iterative design process, multiple idea directions were explored, and a concept was developed through the creation and evaluation of several prototypes. This resulted in the final concept: Twinkle., Twinkle consists of a sphere, with an interactive dynamic light inside of it. This light can move across the surface of the sphere to proactively try to attract the attention of residents and trigger the curiosity in them to initiate interaction. When an interaction is started, the behavior of the light will change depending on the actions of the user. This way, it allows the user to explore the possibilities of the object. This way, Twinkle provides both cognitive and sensory stimulation to enhance personal and physical connectedness and thereby support emotional well-being for people living with moderate to severe dementia to bring back the twinkle in their eyes.