Second Mini Challenge
Over 20% of adults aged 60 and over suffer from a mental or neurological disorder (excluding headache disorders). And yet, when we think of old age is deterioration of mental faculties the first thing that comes to our mind? No. We think of physiological disorders.
Dementia is a syndrome in which there is deterioration in memory, thinking, behaviour and the ability to perform everyday activities. It mainly affects older people. Alzheimer's is a chronic neurodegenerative disease that usually starts slowly and gets worse over time.It is the cause of 60% to 70% of cases of dementia.
Alzheimer's and Dementia are ongoing processes. They are a journey and do not arrive at your doorstep one fine day. Mental health problems are under-identified by health-care professionals and older people themselves, and the stigma surrounding mental illness makes people reluctant to seek help.
There is no medication currently available to cure dementia but much can be done to support and improve the lives of people with dementia and their caregivers and families, such as: early diagnosis, in order to promote early and optimal management, optimizing physical and psychological health and well-being, identifying and treating accompanying physical illness, detecting and managing challenging behavioural and psychological symptoms, and providing information and long-term support to caregivers.
Thus, prevention is the only cure.
Today we need technology that will not only diagnose Alzheimer's/Dementia or help support patients already suffering from them, but also stimulate the mind and make it robust enough to prevent the onset of such mental disorders through mind games, memory maps, emotional stimulation, continuous learning , social interaction, mental health trackers and so on.
Current technology caters to mundane and ultra specific requirements with technologies like Reminder Messages, Clocks, Medication Management, GPS Location and Tracking Device, Picture Phones, Electrical Use Monitoring and so on. It is less interactive when it comes to design, something absolutely essential for somoene with Alzheimer's. Besides, these technologies are completely dependent on the already afflicted to initiate action and provide fixed responses.
This challenges the social stereotype that equates old age with dementia and the stereotype that we can't do much to support affected people in spite of scope for developing effective technology.
References: http://www.brightfocus.org/
Second Mini Challenge
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