Challenges in Dementia Family Caregiving and How Technology Helps in Monitoring

Research indicates that taking care of people with dementia as family caregivers can cause huge stress and burden. In this project, I studied how dementia influenced the life of family caregivers and found that monitoring is one of the most burdensome caregiving tasks. Living with uncertainty about loved one’s safety and health can be scary. To explore new technological opportunities in monitoring people with dementia, I conducted surveys and interviews with dementia family caregivers about their experiences, attitudes, and expectations of a monitoring system. Based on the research, I designed a comprehensive monitoring system using an animal-shaped robot. Findings from this project indicate that this system can relieve caregivers from always having to be around to support the care recipients and help to reduce their stress at some level. Moreover, the real life robot pet can be a good companion and bring therapeutic effects on people with dementia