Advanced Bio-Feedback and Collaborative Techniques to Support Caregivers of Alzheimer Patients

This paper describes a web-based framework to support caregivers of patients with dementia. Dementia is not a specific disease. It´s an overall term that describes a wide range of symptoms associated with a decline in memory or other thinking skills severe enough to reduce a person´s ability to perform everyday activities. Caregivers mainly face the problems such as (a) psychological pressure in a daily basis, (b) lack of knowledge and/or training about caring the patients and (c) lack of knowledge about the consequences of dementia in patients´ behavior. These issues reveal the demand both for the support and the training for caregivers. Following this direction, we developed a web based framework to provide distant support for caregivers who are not able to participate in face to face sessions. This framework integrates services (i.e. teleconferencing, content management, learning management) and tools (such as bio-feedback devices) to support distance learning and psychological support of the caregivers. Based on the current usage of this framework this paper investigates the exploitation and integration of scripted computer-supported collaborative learning activities in order to guide and enhance the caregivers´ support.