The rising need for effective monitoring for dementia in 2021 and beyond:

1 in 10 Singaporeans aged 60 and above suffer from dementia.

From our interviews with doctors, care homes and dementia organisations, it is evident that monitoring of dementia and dementia progression is necessary because of the highly unknown changes that take place on a day-to-day basis. There is a huge information gap when it comes to treatment and care for patients.

Given the need for physical distancing all over the world, the need for remote monitoring has emerged. Especially because persons over 60 are at a higher risk to COVID-19.

Abstract

Development of a novel dementia monitoring toolkit incorporating various parameters that are essential to dementia.

Insights from interviews:

1. Patients visit doctors usually twice a year which makes it very difficult for doctors to have information about their progression during the 6 months. There is a huge information gap.
2. Problems like sleep disturbances, slowed down response rate, irregular wandering patterns are unknown and can only be detected by day-to-day or week-to-week monitoring.
3. Through regular monitoring treatment can be customised to the requirements of the patient.
4. Effect of a particular medication, routine, activity or ay other treatment, can be monitored using this toolkit.
5. Caregivers can also customise activities, routines based on the toolkit’s analysis.
6. It would help give reassurance to carers and family members about the patient’s psychological and physical well-being and alert/alarm them when necessary.
7. With more data and insights we can create an ecosystem of aware dementia care.
   

Solution:

Our proposed device will auto-track key dementia parameters, which, as of now are:

Sleep:  Total Sleep Duration, REM Sleep Time, Deep Sleep Time, Light Sleep Time, Awake Time
Speech: Speech rate, Hesitation ratio, Articulation rate, Hesitations
Physical activity: Stressed heart rate, Resting heart rate, Daily cadence, Hourly cadence, Irregular movement