A Review and Analysis of Mobile Health Applications for Alzheimer Patients and Caregivers

Abstract

Alzheimer, a common form of dementia causes deterioration of cognitive abilities of an individual which results in difficulty in carrying out their routine activities. Research suggests that there is no cure for this deadly disease. However, the progression of the disease can be slowed down by improving the patient's quality of life, providing a solution for enhancing the cognitive abilities of the patient. One of the possible solution is to motivate the use of Smartphone by the patient. Smartphones play a crucial role for the family members of the Alzheimer patients as it helps the patients in carrying out their routine activities by providing time to time notifications about them. Furthermore, the smartphone also helps in assisting the caregiver to take proper care of the patient, such as retrieving the GPS locations of the patient, using Geotagging. Photographs can be used as a source of the medium in helping patients remember their family members. They are susceptible to music; therefore, the patient brain can be stimulated by playing their beloved tones. Smartphones tend to be a one-stop shop for providing all these facilities to the patients. This motivates the need to build relatively simple cross-platform mobile applications with interactive GUIs so as to enhance their cognitive abilities.