Presentation of ISISEMD project in Thessaloniki

On Friday the 18th February I had the pleasure to present the ISISEMD project in a round-table session at the 7th Panhellenic Conference on Alzheimer's Disease and Related Disorders, held in Thessaloniki Greece. This is a very important national conference that attracts the interest of the involved people (medicine doctors, practitioners, caregivers, etc) in topics related to Alzheimer and dementia. The topic of the round table was “The evolution of technology in treating dementia” and was moderated by Prof. Bamidis who is the co-ordinator of the ICT PSP project LongLastingMemories. Moreover, findings and results of the T-Seniority project have been presented as well.
It was a short but very interesting session as I had the chance to see the progress of the other projects as well and to present the ISISEMD status and results. The audience of the session (approximately 30 people) was attending with big interest especially when I talked about the so called “good stories” of the project. It was apparent, as most of the audience had no big familiarity with technological developments in this domain, that some of the good stories, like for instance identifying if a patient is out of bed for too long over night, is something that they were not aware of how it can be achieved with state-of-the art and affordable technological means. The general discussion that took place after the presentations was mainly focused on the ethical aspects of such technological interventions in treating the dementia. Ethical issues might arise if the technology is actually monitoring the patients with dementia in the domotics environment or outdoors. It is though evident that this relies in the volunteering of the patients (and their relatives) to be involved in such projects. The audience though expressed their interest in such technological developments and it relies in the near future to prove that such solutions can actually work for the benefit of the patients and their caregivers.
I would like to thank Prof. Bamidis for inviting our project in this round table. It seems that the two projects can have a solid liaison ground and common presence in future dissemination activities.
-Antonis

Welcome to ISISEMD Blog!

"What does ISISEMD stands for?" This is one of the most common question that my colleagues and friends are asking. As a project acronym is not self descriptive, but certainly it means a lot to all of us. It stands for "Intelligent System for Independent living and SElfcare of seniors with cognitive problems or Mild Dementia".
This is an initiative that started some years ago and today is an EC co-funded project that aims to make a difference for one of the most difficult diseases that mainly affect elderly people and is rapidly increasing in Europe.
At the time we started building the idea behind ISISEMD we did consider this mainly as an ICT solution. Now that we are approaching the end of the 2nd year, we all realize that it is something much more than that. It is an initiative that aims to change the lifes of many people that suffer from mild dementia, apart from other aspects that are linked with the relatives and the financial benefit for the people and the National Health Systems. From all meetings we had so far, I still remember the day when we all visited people that make use of ISISEMD services and we realized how nice is to see people enjoying the benefits of technology.
So what is ISISEMD system? It is the outcome of the integration of existing IT systems that result in intelligent services for elderly people, formal care givers and relatives. These services can help the person who suffers from this disease to live independently safely; while other service elements aim to limit the development of the disease.
This is a pilot project involving 4 regions from different countries in Europe and some tens of elderly people. The project, structured around these 4 regions, together with industrial partners and academia.
As always in life, the same coin has 2 sides; therefore, apart from the smiles we see and we have; we all experience the day-by-day challenges, as we are dealing with very sensitive people and we need to offer services that should be up & running at a 24/7 level.
Both with my position as technical manager of the project, and my engineering and academic experience I am proud to be part of this team and I am looking forward to see ISISEMD in many houses, also after the end of the project.
I have been selected to write the first blog post, as I have some little experience with Blogs ;) and I would like to use this opportunity to ask all participants of ISISEMD project, as well as other people that are interested in giving us your views and raising your questions.

Sofoklis