State of the Art in Electronic Assistive Technologies for People with Dementia

Abstract

It is estimated by 2050 that one-third of Europe’s population will be over 60. Life expectancy has on average already risen by 2.5 years per decade and the number of old people aged 80+ is expected to grow by 180%. Nowadays, there are 5.5 million cases of Alzheimer-afflicted people in Europe and more new cases being added every year. In fact Alzheimer’s disease has been called the “plague of the twenty-first century”. There is currently no cure for this disease; however, prevention and early diagnosis may play a huge role in delaying the onset of the worst effects of this severe disease. Modern technologies could have an important role to satisfy main needs of people with dementia. Nonetheless, despite recent advancements in information and communication technologies and growing sales numbers, industry has been rather reluctant to standardise access technologies and to implement them in a “Design for All approach”. Because of this, in last years, there have been launched in Europe a great number of initiatives, both public and private, which try to improve the situation of those persons who suffer this ailment and that will be detailed in this chapter.