Reminiscing is a positive process for individuals living with Alzheimer’s Disease(AD), reinforcing remaining cognitive capabilities, building positive social experiences and improving quality of life. In the AMPER project our aim is to develop an App with a storytelling agent that supports reminiscing between a user and their carer based on autobiographical memory.
Reminiscence therapy has been shown to enhance self-understanding, reinforce self-identity, promote wellbeing and enhance low mood. However it is run in group settings with a human facilitator, limiting access. AMPER aims to help people living with Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) to retain and strengthen memories held in the still viable regions of their brain by reminding and encouraging them to talk about their past individually and in a domestic setting. The AMPER agent acts as a carer-assisted story facilitator for an individual and their carer using an intelligent graphical agent on a tablet. The carer encourages and supports the AD individual in the reminiscence process based on the cues presented by the AMPER agent. This is a feasible technological intervention with simple AI to learn user preferences and offers a personalised and adaptable reminiscing experience focusing on their teenage years and early adulthood (using BBC RemArc materials and a small set of personalised memorabilia)
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Target users - those with early stage Alzheimer’s Disease or other dementia
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Participatory design approach involving a steering group and users: eventual evaluation of a research prototype with 40 users with early-stage AD
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A clinical trial would come in a subsequent project depending on this evaluation
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We will also include a small scale experiment with a desktop robot