People with dementia experience different symptoms and assistive technology should be personalized to the individual’s lifestyle, time varying circumstances and complements individual’s care, aiming at enhancing their quality of life reliably. Modern smartwatches are cost effective hardware, capable of tracking individual’s activities, biological signals and provide means of communication with the minimum stigma. We have taken the needs of people with dementia in the design process of a wearable assistive technology to enhance their existing qualities and to provide new capabilities that is simple but customizable, inexpensive but extendable, adaptive and pliable to fill the market void.
Xeralz
The complexity of the Alzheimer’s disease makes it extremely challenging to have a useful solution developed for many patients. Alzheimer’s community tend to also conclude that technology cannot be effective since it does not solve real problems. We have developed a first in kind and a full-fledge assistive technology product named Xeralz aimed at patients afflicted with dementia and Alzheimer’s disease. This software product is to be available from online stores and deployed across commercially available smartwatches that currently support sensors capable of tracking patients’ movements and biology and also provide a variety of communication means. This product comprises five major sub-products, namely, Xervision, Xerognosis, Xercare, Xersafe and Xerprove . As the names may suggest, they maintain supervision of patients, institute a dedicated prognosis tool, provide care to patients, guard patient’s safety and try to improve patient’s existing abilities. Since power consumption is critical in wearable technologies, analyzing algorithms are optimized, designed to make use of sensors optimally. We intend to prepare a platform for future developers to build upon and extend. Xeralz is currently intended for Samsung Gear S4 but will be ported to Android Wear and Apple Watch as well.
Xervision
This sub-product aims for four goals. It connects individuals and compatible devices using global networks, phone calls and texts.
It notifies patients with choices, provides optional activities and assists in locating belongings or equipment when the patient is in proximity of registered objects using a familiar voice of a family member.
The product is capable of adapting to depreciating patients’ conditions, considering their ages, sexes, routines and abilities/disabilities with minimum stigma in using the product.
It detects and tries to minimize patients’ neuropsychiatric activities, analyzing the sympathetic nervous system.
Xerognosis
aims to consolidate most of the standard dementia/Alzheimer’s assessment tools for proper disease prognosis and progress. It tries to eliminate some deficiencies of existing tools and the overall limitations like difficulty in administration and/or tools complexities. We intend to benefit from the accumulated, processed and classified sensor data as the partial input to the tool. This tool is also expected to track brain function by preparing mental drills to detect advance in dementia, decrement in physical health and cognitive function. Evaluate the Alzheimer's severity of a patient using our online tool.
Xercare
comprises two toolsets, the Basic and the Personal. The Basic Assistant aims at identifying basic needs of the patients including hunger, toilet and hygiene and tries to minimize the risks associated with limited activity like of bed sores. The personal assistant extends the care to taking orders from the patients to have certain tasks performed or expected actions started. It also initiates activities for patients based on situation or location while adapting to patients conditions depreciating.
Xersafe
comprises two toolsets, the Internal and External Mitigators. The Internal Mitigator tries to moderate or identify the risks initiated by patients’ actions including falls, perilous movements and driving accidents. The External Mitigator identifies and informs of hazards in the environment. Hazards may include vehicle or non-vehicle accidents, extreme changes in temperature, fire, drowning, prolonged sun exposure and presence in hazardous areas. Both Mitigators consider depreciating patients conditions.
Xerprove
plans to assist patients with autobiographical memory, sensory enhancement by multiform information translation (text-to-speech, vision-to-voice), socializing, situational awareness and reminders while adapting to patients conditions depreciating.