Not All Who Wander Are Lost
Joy Ng, Haixun Kong · 2016
Wandering is a prevalent behavior for people with Dementia (PwD). Existing tracker designs disempower PwD as objects to be monitored by the caregivers. Inspired by human-centered multimedia computing (HCMC) that advocates the adaptation of machine with the user, we design a smart GPS tracker that will analyze human activity, adapt to individual wandering patterns, and subsequently employ Artificial Intelligence (AI) to facilitate safe and independent outdoor walking. With the system design also inspired by person-centered dementia care (VIPS) paradigm; this work-in-progress paper highlights the need to consider PwD as valuable individual that can engage in social participation through smart assistive technology. We describe the system design in this paper and highlight several design implications including the transfer of caregiver's power to the employed AI.