An intelligent system for assisting family caregivers of dementia people

Abstract

Caregiving a person suffering from dementia or loss of brain cognitive ability due to aging is a big physical, mental and emotional burden to family members. In this paper we present a novel system for assisting caregivers at home. The system employs heterogeneous sensing and artificial intelligence technologies to automatically and unobtrusively monitor the patient; assess possible risks that the patient may face in current situation; and alert the caregiver on emergency by delivering video, audio and text to his mobile phone or PC. We discuss the system architecture and technologies applied for sensing, communication, assessment and user-interface, and present a prototype system implementation.