5 Ways Technology Can Make Life Easier for Caregivers of Dementia Patients

“Are you going to download 12 of these apps and then see how they work for you?” says Jeffrey Kaye, professor of neurology and biomedical engineering and the director of the Layton Aging and Alzheimer’s Disease Center at Oregon Health & Science University. “There’s no easy way to actually figure out what is hopefully going to be helpful for you in this kind of larger available universe.”

Reading reviews, though an imperfect way to determine quality, may give you some sense of a product’s worth, says Kaye, who is also director of the  Oregon Center for Aging and Technology (ORCATECH).

2. Smart home devices help with supervision

Most products in the smart home category weren’t designed for people experiencing cognitive decline. Still, appliances with automatic shutoff, carbon monoxide detectors, doorbell cameras, smart locks and smart thermostats can provide peace of mind for caregivers from afar.

At home, voice-activated assistants such as Alexa and Google Assistant in Echo and Google Home speakers and other devices can answer repetitive questions and give reminders at mealtime. This could include caretaker instructions on where to find the food and how long to heat it or activation when it’s time to take medications.

Amazon’s $19.99-a-month Alexa Together subscription, which requires caregivers to have Echo speakers and the Alexa app on their smartphones, lets people keep a watchful eye remotely on patients in cognitive decline. Through the app paired with other sensors, they can be alerted to a fall, determine when a loved one leaves the house, manage shopping lists and more.

Sensors around the home and in other products can alert caregivers to changes in patterns of behavior or when something may be amiss. Has the person taken a spill? Has the refrigerator door not been opened in a while? How much time is the person spending in the bathroom?

Expensive smart refrigerators such as the Samsung Family Hub are equipped with cameras that show their contents. Caregivers can peek inside through an app to make sure their loved one is eating and has enough food.

The fridge is among the products that the Alzheimer’s Foundation has included in a dementia-friendly model apartment it set up.

“I know the door is locked at night. I know who rang the doorbell. I know the thermostat’s not set at 30 degrees or 100 degrees. It’s set at something reasonable,” says Stephen Ewell, executive director of the Consumer Technology Association Foundation.

But Ewell is mindful of the need to balance supervision with privacy. In the early stages of dementia, an older adult doesn’t necessarily want to be watched all the time.

3. Wearables can map out ‘safe zones’

Smartwatches such as Apple Watch, Google Pixel Watch and Samsung Galaxy can detect falls and dispatch SOS alerts if a person is unresponsive. Many wearables include GPS tracking technology that can alert caregivers if a person has wandered off.

In the $369.95 Theora Connect GPS Tracker Watch, caregivers can set safe zones from a smartphone to let them know if their loved one strays. Kochlefl at The Alzheimer’s Store is a fan of a locking clasp option for the watch that prevents a person with dementia from removing it.

The watch has a two-way audio connect feature that lets the wearer hear the caregiver’s voice. The person with dementia does not have to push any buttons to talk back.

The Kanega Watch from UnaliWear, billed as a medical alert timepiece with fall detection, medication reminders and round-the-clock monitoring, works off a cellular connection as well as Wi-Fi. A pair of rechargeable batteries are inserted into compartments on each side of the watchband, so a person doesn’t need to remove the watch to swap them out. It costs $199 up front under an annual plan, plus $59.95 a month for monitoring.

General caveats: “Wearables are great when they’re worn and charged,” Kaye says. But many people don’t like the wristbands. Some who are willing may forget or not use them properly.

4. Simple phones, tablets aid in two-way talks

At some point, people with dementia can no longer use the iPhone or Android devices they may have had for years.

Instead, they may be candidates for a device such as the $349 RAZ Memory Cell Phone, a one-touch dial picture phone from Cabin John, Maryland, start-up RAZ Mobility, winner of a 2022 AARP start-up pitch competition. The phone has an always-on screen with up to six named pictures shown at once, each associated with a contact the user can tap to call. It has no keypad.

A caregiver can remotely edit contacts via an app on their iPhone or Android device. Through a software update promised soon, caregivers will be able to place video calls, a feature the person with dementia cannot initiate on their own.

Although not specifically created for older adults with dementia, the Lively Jitterbug Flip2 phone includes a large red emergency response button directly on the keypad, along with other large buttons. It connects the person with an around-the-clock agent. Flip2 costs $99.99 with a $19.99-a-month unlimited talk and text plan that includes voicemail and brain fitness games.

The GrandPad tablet, targeted at people 75 and older, also wasn’t developed for dementia patients. For $89 a month at grandpad.net, you get the hardware, access to cellular and 24/7 customer care. A user can connect to family through an encrypted private network, which is meant to be off-limits to spammers and telemarketers. Other GrandPad sellers include Amazon, Consumer Cellular and Walmart.

5. Virtual reality isn’t easy to use

Some older adults have embraced virtual reality (VR) to overcome some of the mental, physical and social challenges that come with aging. A VR headset shuts out the outside world and immerses the wearer in an alternate reality they typically cannot visit in real life.

A company called MyndVR has a cognitive app in which a person wearing a headset is asked to identify the source of sounds played in a kitchen, such as water running in the sink.

The EVRTalk virtual reality experience from the Council on Aging is directed at caregivers to train them on challenges they may face. VR sessions address topics such as caregiver burnout, incontinence and medicine management.

The barriers in adopting virtual reality technology may be higher than for other areas. Cost, complexity and a person’s resistance to wearing a headset are the biggest, preventing VR from becoming mainstream, says Kaye in Oregon.

“There’s still a large amount of work that needs to be done to have something that is easily applied, effectively helpful and low cost,” he says.