A Bluetooth Tracking Device That Helps To Locate People With Dementia
Getting misplaced affects the standard of life of older individuals who may undergo from dementia. Naturally, it worries their caregivers too, however what can know-how do to assist? A phone survey of 251 household caregivers of individuals with dementia (1) in 2007 found that the prevalence of getting lost amongst group-dwelling individuals with dementia was at around 28%. These individuals had been most likely to get misplaced on the road (24%). 61% of respondents would seek for care recipients in neighborhood, whereas 12% would seek help from friends and iTagPro official neighbours. It was additionally discovered that 46% of care recipients have been situated within one hour of lacking and 96% inside 24 hours. Our survey in 2021 of 576 family caregivers of people with dementia showed related prevalence in getting lost, revealing that there remains to be room to improve on reducing the risks of people with dementia getting lost in the neighborhood. While solely 12% of family caregivers would seek help from mates and neighbours in 2007. In 2021, this had increased to 21% of family caregivers seeking assist from neighbours and 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 gadgets (2.7%) and social media platforms (4.8%) to aid in looking. This will include Bluetooth tracking devices. When a person with dementia will get lost, they are most more likely to be discovered in the streets during the day with people around. Neighborhoods could therefore be a superb source of help, provided that they are more likely to be found within one hour, i.e. not far from the places they get lost. In this regard, educating most people would assist make people aware of this challenge. Family caregivers of individuals with dementia worry about what the longer term might hold, and whether or not their liked one could get lost. They clearly want to keep away from this at all prices. Due to know-how improvement, these days, family caregivers increasingly use the GPS operate on cell phones or tracking units to go looking the misplaced people with dementia, indicating a demand for the development of such technology.
Because of 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 technology in the "Caring communities for dementia campaign". The tracking device "iBeacon" we developed has quick response and long- distance tracking up to 50m and is battery-saving with 1-yr battery life. It is designed in different forms so that it may be put into a wallet or hooked up to a strolling keep on with lower the resistance of people with dementia to carry the device. When a person with dementia is getting lost, his or her caregivers might activate the missing alert on the app put in on the caregiver’s cell phone. And then the residents who have installed the tracking app on their mobile phones will probably be notified to turn on their Bluetooth for iBeacon looking and GPS for location sharing.
When these citizens’ cellphones detect the iBeacon, their location would be anonymously sent to our cloud server and our localization engine would calculate the placement of the iBeacon which might then be despatched to the caregivers to assist with their search. Such expertise not solely facilitates household caregivers’ seek for misplaced relatives with dementia but in addition promotes dementia friendliness group by mobilising the general public to assist individuals with dementia who get lost. Over 3,000 people have obtained our iBeacons in this project and near 40,000 citizens have downloaded our app to help the search. When a person with dementia obtained lost, the vast majority of the caregivers would search for them within the streets (72%), whereas 36% of the caregivers in the project used iBeacons to go looking for his or her lacking kinfolk with dementia. 36% of caregivers managed to search out the lacking care recipients within one hour, 97% inside 24 hours.
0.018), indicating that our iBeacons would motivate family caregivers to make use of expertise to aid tracking in future getting misplaced episodes. The caregivers participating in our project welcomed the know-how and the tracking device. 86% of caregivers thought that the iBeacon was simple for individuals with dementia to carry, 85% noticed that their family members with dementia had been keen to carry the iBeacon throughout the intervention interval. 78% of caregivers had been happy with the durability of the iBeacon, and 86% thought that the designated mobile app was straightforward to make use of. The general programme satisfaction rate was 84%, revealing that they held a optimistic stance in direction of using this know-how in their every day lives to prevent getting lost. Over 1,400 individuals who have attended our publication talks affirmed our undertaking on the promotion of a dementia-friendly community. Over 98% of the participants had enhanced data and a more optimistic attitude in the direction of dementia, and iTagPro official 97% of the contributors mentioned that they could be extra willing to assist people with dementia who get misplaced within the streets. Overall, this programme has promoted dementia friendliness and the utilization of know-how to help in looking for people with dementia who get misplaced locally. Kong. International journal of geriatric psychiatry. 2. JCCPA. Getting Lost Prevention.