An Automated System for Caregivers and Staff to Locate Items Misplaced by Personswith Dementia in a Care Facility

Project Summary/Abstract This proposal directly addresses the NIH's current interest in technologies that improve health service delivery, management and quality, and digital approaches to improve healthcare services at memory care centers, long term care facilities (LTCF)s and healthcare providers. This phase II project will develop an automated ultra- wide band (UWB) based system for caregivers and staff to easily locate items misplaced by persons with dementia (PWD) or persons with memory concerts (PWMC) in LTCFs. Loss of items is a recurring challenge in LTCFs. Individuals with dementia and cognitive decline are more likely to hide items, forget item location, and unintentionally take items that do not belong to them resulting in item loss. Dementia patients necessitate round-the-clock care by Direct Care Workers (DCWs) in memory care facilities. In these settings, hiding and hoarding of patients entail considerable additional burden for DCWs. Hiding and hoarding involves losing track of possessions, losing track of important tools required for daily functioning, or hiding valuable items for fear of having them stolen. Research, including work from our own successful phase I project, shows that DCWs and staff rely on devices to provide seamless care to persons with dementia (PWD) and when those items go missing, even briefly, the result can be distress for DCWs, increased care burden, and care interruptions. Hiding and hoarding results in the loss of patients' expensive, necessary or emotionally valuable personal effects, thereby increasing DCW workload and undermining effective and efficient provision of care. There is a critical need to develop novel technologies to mitigate the costs of hoarding and hiding; limiting rummaging or accusations of theft, limiting the need for extra staffing, and contributing to more effective memory care delivery in institutional care settings. Results from our successful phase I project showed universal approval of the proposed UWB system with DCWs providing insights not only into the proposed technology features, but also the types of items commonly lost in care settings, the adverse impacts of item loss, useful additions to the proposed tag technology, and tips on successful implementation in a care setting. The proposed phase II project will build on the success of the phase I prototype with innovative features that significantly enhance the UWB system's hardware form factor, set-up, operation, location precision, functionality, robustness, security and usability. Memory care centers and LTCFs who serve PWD, will be the initial target market segment for this product.