Tens of millions of elderly people in the EU suffering from mild dementia may be able to look after themselves, and free up their carers, thanks to a new European-developed system.
One of the first and most debilitating symptoms of dementia is short-term memory loss, which means care is required for people who are otherwise quite capable of looking after themselves. They can perform tasks, but they forget them or how to do them.
Other symptoms of mild dementia can be linked to a loss of self-confidence — old people increasingly refraining from initiating social contact — and to a sense of insecurity.
How to address these concerns and enable mild dementia victims to continue to lead independent lives for an extended period of time has been researched, and possibly solved, by an EU-funded project.
The COGKNOW project brought together some of the leading dementia specialists in Europe, doctors from the Netherlands, Sweden and Northern Ireland, with teams of software researchers and developers. Their aim was to address a range of different needs of mild dementia patients and come up with a simple, user-friendly device to meet those needs.
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