A Device Designed to Improve Care and Wayfinding Assistance for Elders with Dementia

Abstract

With an aging population and the rapid increase in the rate of dementia, the care of patients is a significant problem for caregivers and family members at home. Patients’ spatial and environmental cognitive impairments require caregivers to pay attention to their walking routes, walking safety, and avoiding dangerous areas. With this in mind, this study developed the Dementia Care Management and Mentoring Guarantee System (DECMGSS) to examine the accuracy and efficiency of patient wayfinding, and to reduce the stress on institutional caregivers through a wayfinding task and a caregiver stress scale (CSS). The results showed that the mean time spent with the DECMGSS on 10 subjects with mild to moderate dementia was significantly less than that without the device (t = −2.930, p = 0.017), and the number of errors was also less but not significantly different. In addition, the DECMGSS did significantly reduce the caregiver stress load. Twenty institutional caregivers were divided into experimental and control groups. There was no significant difference in the stress load scores of the control group before and after the test. However, a significant mean difference was found between the pre-test and post-test scores of the experimental group (t = 3.315, p < 0.009). DECMGSS’s intervention significantly reduced the caregiver’s personal anxiety and stress in caregiving and the patient’s time dependence on the caregiver. Although this product is primarily used for patients in the Care Center, it can also be used in other home care settings.