A System for Rewarding Physical and Cognitive Activity in People with Dementia

Treatment of dementia has, until recently, largely been based on medical models that address the immediate biological needs, but often fail to meet the individualized needs of the person, including social and psychological needs. Recently, Montessori approaches have been used to validate the whole person and to provide engaging alternatives to the responsive behaviors that arise from unmet needs. In this population, sedentary lifestyle is a particularly severe problem, and there is an urgent need for more physical exercise. Given not only the known benefits of exercise, but also the difficulty of providing traditional methods of physiotherapy in the volume required, automated methods for motivating, and rewarding physical exercise are needed. The research reported in this paper focuses on the development of technologies for aging well through increased cognitive and physical activity among people with dementia. Our goal is to develop solutions for some of the issues faced by long-term care environments by creating engaging and rewarding activities that are available to people with dementia on a 24x7 basis. We have developed units called Centivizers (for “in-centivizing” behavior) that show promise in improving or maintaining physical and cognitive status in dementia by providing people with rewarding, and always-on, opportunities for engaging experiences that motivate physical exercise and cognitive activity.