Supporting Cognitive Skills of People Suffering from Dementia through a Sensor-Based System

Cognitive Rehabilitation aims to enable people with cognitive impairments to optimize their cognitive functioning in the everyday context, in order to prevent or reduce excess disability, and thus improve quality of life and well-being. This paper presents the main elements of a sensor-based system to support cognitive skills of people suffering from Alzheimer disease (AD) and dementia. The system monitors the patients at their homes during the performance of daily activities. Different types of sensors are used for monitoring the patients, while a graphical user interface a) enables the clinicians to access and visualize the results and b) supports the patients through specific interventions. The sensor data is semantically integrated and analyzed using knowledge-driven interpretation techniques based on Semantic Web technologies. Overall, this paper presents a) the system, b) cognitive rehabilitation scenarios and c) the relevant evaluation methods.