Personal home device development to support elderly with dementia to live independently

Abstract

New product development makes us help people to solve their problem. A group of people who have a physical and mental problem is elderly with dementia. Some limitations, such as a weakened immune system, decreased hearing and vision, and difficulty in remembering, concentrating, and communicating makes the elderly with dementia often difficult to live independently in their home. On the other hand, the complexity of human activity makes less time for the caregiver (family or friend) to pay attention to the elderly with dementia. Therefore, we develop a personal home device that can support them to do all their activities well in their home. The purpose of this research is to develop a personal home device to support elderly with dementia to live independently and to help their family to take care of them. In this research, we focus on user needs and limitations that are different from the needs of people in general. Before we start designing the device, we identify user needs by conducting interview and observation. Their needs and considerations become the basis to develop the device. The device development uses a mixed method that combines ulrich and eppinger method and participatory design by involving stakeholders in the design process. This research also performs benchmark analysis, anthropometric analysis, and some other ergonomic analysis in the development process. We created a high-fidelity prototype to evaluate and introduce the device. The functionality and usability of the device are evaluated using three methods: task completion, interview, and SUS Scoring. The personal home device resulted is a combination of hardware and software that is smart, safe, user-friendly, and interactive to support the elderly with dementia to live independently. The device has five main functions to support elderly with dementia: reminder function, medicine management function, storage management function, moment viewer function, and smart time indicator function.