Memory Lane and Remote Doctor services: two examples of how the ISISEMD platform supports both users and caregivers in daily life.

A major strong point of ISISEMD is its 360° assistance capability, in fact ISISEMD addresses the needs of and provides services to all involved parties: patients, patients’ relatives and caregivers.

ISISEMD Memory Lane and Remote Doctor services are two examples of how this platform supports both users (the patients) and caregivers in their daily life.

In other areas of this blog it is clearly explained that the ISISEMD platform provides a series of services to improve the daily life of mild dementia affected people, their families and professional caregivers who follow them up.

Based upon several years of experience in telemedicine systems, our contribution to ISISEMD consists in managing the design, development, customization and optimization of two services addressing different needs: Memory Lane and Remote Doctor. Memory Lane is an elderly users oriented service, where elderly users and relatives/caregivers play different roles, while Remote Doctor is reserved to caregivers, even if it can be accessed by the relatives.

The Memory Lane service aims to maintain memories to people with dementia, with no intervention: images are shown automatically on their carebox screen at home. To look at the digital picture album, which consists of pictures of family, friends, places that meant in personal life, is one of the stimulations that maintain cognitive functions. Looking at these scenes allows the user to use imagination and strengthen visual recognition abilities. The service is lived by the user as just reminiscence but it carries on an implicit personal challenge without asking for a specific (right vs wrong) answer. Pictures set and caption can be changed easily by relatives or caregivers connecting to the portal everywhere they are.

The Remote Doctor service aims to provide a series of clinical information to caregivers and to support them in daily elderly follow up: elderly personal profile, anamnesis, actual and previous treatment, visits details and clinical report are stored. Part of this information can be accessed by the relatives too, as an example actual therapy is shared in order to act as an incontrovertibly reference for elderly treatment. Furthermore the service offers the possibility to share the same information with a remotely located expert (she/he may be in hospital or elsewhere). The next service release will integrate a communication system able to put the field operator (caregiver) needing support in real time contact with the remote expert (second opinion).

The above described services offer examples of how the platform, even if focused on elderly requirements, proposes a full basket of services to enhance the life quality of both elderly people and their relatives providing, at the same time, a substantial support to those active in social service jobs.

Cinzia, Fulvio, Silvia

Dissemination activities on the region of Trikala, Greece

The ISISEMD project has entered the final year of implementation. It is now easier to disseminate and publicize the final schema of the project, as it is almost totally implemented. During past February, there were three dissemination attempts where the ISISEMD project was shown on TV from Trikala region.

1. In the first attempt on Friday 11th February, the project was presented live on a local TV channel (TV10) in Trikala, Greece. The channel broadcasts in the Prefecture of Thessaly, Greece, (part of which is Trikala) and covers around half a million population. The duration of the show was around 34 minutes and can be followed by the following links, as it is in two parts.

Part 1


Part 2

In the show participated two psychologists, Ms Xristina Karaberi and Ms Labrini Oikonomou, employees of DEKA. During the preceding days of that week there was a successful installation and association of a carebox PC (with ramos + sensors), which acted as a new DEMO machine. After the initial scope of the project, some talk about the cognitive disease, the project participants and the profile of a potential test user, our psychologists displayed a demo of most of the system's capabilities. They touched the help request button, they explained some reminders - some of which were planned and triggered during the live show which excited the journalist, Mr Christos Pissas, they described the use of the sensors and of the lommy device. Many times the cameraman focused on the carebox screen and its formation, which we believe helped everyone to understand its functionality, as it was plainly and clearly explained.

2. The second attempt took place on Monday 21st February. Ms Chrisitina Karaberi (Psychologist, employee of DEKA) and Mr George Gorgogetas (Electrical Engineer, employee of e-Trikala SA) presented the ISISEMD project in Greek national channel (NET). The show ("ΣΥΜΒΑΙΝΕΙ ΤΩΡΑ") is of news and educational character and took place on the house of an existing test EP.



In the few available minutes of the interview, the general scope of the project was explained, the installed sensors were shown and some shots from the carebox and the portal's administrative page were also monitored.

3. On Tuesday 22 February 2011, another public national wide TV channel (ET3) visited our premises in Trikala and had a reportage about ISISEMD.



On this reportage Ms Christina Karaberi (employee of DEKA), Mr George Gorgogetas (employee of e-trikala SA) and Mr George Vallas (employer of e-trikala SA) are shortly presenting the functionality of the project.


The dissemination activities made the ISISEMD project wider known and easier for some 'technophobic' Greek elderly to adopt. All these activities led to the location and recruitment of 10 people to consist the test group for the pilot in Trikala.

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