JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

A major challenge in dementia care is to maintain good communication and engagement between persons with dementia and their caregivers which is an essential requirement for implementing person-centered dementia care. Although there has been a rapid growth in the availability of digital technology applications to support caregiving, there is a lack of effective tools to support routine communication and engagement, especially at the personalized level. Furthermore, the use of AI to reduce the time and effort needed to personalize and optimize applications and enable wider use by non-specialist caregivers and families remains largely unexplored.

Objective:

The aim of this study was to evaluate the acceptability and feasibility of the Aikomi digital to provide personalized cognitive stimulation programs to promote communication and engagement between people with dementia and usual caregivers and capture use data for future development of AI applications.

Methods:

A modular technology platform called Aikomi was developed to create and deliver digital cognitive stimulation and it was used to create personalized programs for 15 persons with dementia living in 4 residential care facilities in Japan with cooperation from a family member or caregiver. Each audio-visual program was viewed on a tablet by the person with dementia and their caregiver, and their interaction during the session was recorded by a video camera. For some participants, smell stimulation with selected smell sticks was used in conjunction with the digital program.

Results:

According to a Japanese translation of the Engagement of Persons with Dementia Scale (EPWDS) most people with dementia showed positive engagement while viewing the stimulation programs and no negative engagement was observed. The level of response to each type of content in the stimulation program was highly dependent on the persons with dementia, and some caregivers reported that the participants showed extended concentration and spontaneous communication while using Aikomi which was not usual for them. Smell stimulation was to enhance engagement for some participants, even when they were not able to identify the smell. No noticeable changes in wellbeing were observed according to the Mental Function Impairment Scale (MENFIS) following the intervention, however, a reduction in anxiety and agitation following the use of Aikomi was reported by caregivers for some people with dementia.

Conclusions:

This study suggests the Aikomi digital application is acceptable for use by caregivers and persons with dementia and may have the potential to promote communication and engagement. The diversity of contents and individuality of the responses shown by the person with dementia highlighted the importance of personalizing programs as well as using video data to capture and analyse responses in sufficient detail. This study paves the way to use the Aikomi platform for the development of AI to automate the personalization process and create digital tools that can be conveniently and routinely used to support communication and engagement between people with dementia in real-world care settings.