A Bluetooth Tracking Device that Helps to Locate People With Dementia
Getting lost impacts the quality of life of older people who might undergo from dementia. Naturally, it worries their caregivers too, but what can know-how do to help? A telephone survey of 251 household caregivers of individuals with dementia (1) in 2007 found that the prevalence of getting lost among community-dwelling people with dementia was at round 28%. These individuals had been most likely to get misplaced on the road (24%). 61% of respondents would search for care recipients in neighborhood, travel security tracker whereas 12% would search assist from pals and neighbours. It was additionally found that 46% of care recipients had been located within one hour of lacking and 96% within 24 hours. Our survey in 2021 of 576 family caregivers of individuals with dementia confirmed related prevalence in getting lost, revealing that there remains to be room to improve on reducing the dangers of individuals with dementia getting lost in the community. While solely 12% of household caregivers would seek help from buddies and travel security tracker neighbours in 2007. In 2021, this had elevated to 21% of family caregivers in search of assist from neighbours and travel security tracker safety guards within the residential areas.
Tracking gadgets and social media were not prevalent back in 2007. By distinction, these days, caregivers who would use tracking devices (2.7%) and social media platforms (4.8%) to aid in searching. This will embody Bluetooth monitoring devices. When a person with dementia gets lost, they are most more likely to be found in the streets in the course of the day with folks around. Neighborhoods might therefore be a great supply of help, on condition that they usually tend to be found inside one hour, i.e. not removed from the locations they get misplaced. In this regard, educating most of the people would help make individuals aware of this difficulty. Family caregivers of individuals with dementia fear about what the long run may hold, and whether their beloved one might get lost. They obviously want to avoid this at all costs. Due to know-how development, iTagPro smart device these days, household caregivers increasingly use the GPS perform on cell phones or travel security tracker monitoring devices to look the misplaced individuals with dementia, indicating a demand for the event of such expertise.
Thanks to the donation from The Hong Kong Jockey Club Charities Trust, Jockey Club Centre for Positing Ageing collaborated with The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology and St James Settlement to develop a tracking device utilizing blue tooth and crowdsourcing machine learning expertise within the "Caring communities for dementia campaign". The tracking device "iBeacon" we developed has quick response and lengthy- distance tracking as much as 50m and is battery-saving with 1-12 months battery life. It is designed in different types so that it may be put into a wallet or attached to a walking stick to lower the resistance of people with dementia to hold the system. When an individual with dementia is getting misplaced, his or her caregivers may activate the lacking alert on the app installed on the caregiver’s mobile phone. After which the residents who have installed the tracking app on their mobile phones might be notified to activate their Bluetooth for iBeacon looking out and GPS for location sharing.
When these citizens’ mobile phones detect the iBeacon, their location can be anonymously despatched to our cloud server and our localization engine would calculate the situation of the iBeacon which would then be sent to the caregivers to assist with their search. Such technology not solely facilitates family caregivers’ seek for misplaced relations with dementia but additionally promotes dementia friendliness group by mobilising the general public to assist people with dementia who get lost. Over 3,000 individuals have obtained our iBeacons on this undertaking and close to 40,000 residents have downloaded our app to assist the search. When an individual with dementia got lost, nearly all of the caregivers would look for iTagPro shop them within the streets (72%), while 36% of the caregivers within the project used iBeacons to go looking for his or her missing kin with dementia. 36% of caregivers managed to search out the missing care recipients within one hour, travel security tracker 97% within 24 hours.
0.018), smart item locator indicating that our iBeacons would encourage household caregivers to use expertise to aid tracking in future getting misplaced episodes. The caregivers participating in our venture welcomed the know-how and the tracking device. 86% of caregivers thought that the iBeacon was simple for travel security tracker folks with dementia to carry, 85% observed that their family members with dementia were keen to carry the iBeacon through the intervention interval. 78% of caregivers had been happy with the durability of the iBeacon, and 86% thought that the designated mobile app was easy to make use of. The general programme satisfaction rate was 84%, revealing that they held a constructive stance in the direction of utilizing this expertise of their every day lives to forestall getting lost. Over 1,four hundred contributors who've attended our publication talks affirmed our challenge on the promotion of a dementia-pleasant group. Over 98% of the individuals had enhanced knowledge and ItagPro a extra optimistic angle in direction of dementia, and 97% of the contributors mentioned that they could be more willing to help folks with dementia who get misplaced within the streets. Overall, ItagPro this programme has promoted dementia friendliness and the utilization of know-how to help in looking for individuals with dementia who get lost locally. Kong. International journal of geriatric psychiatry. 2. JCCPA. Getting Lost Prevention.