Real-Time Detection of Spatial Disorientation in Persons with Mild Cognitive Impairment and Dementia.

Background: Detecting manifestations of spatial disorientation in real time is a key requirement for adaptive assistive navigation systems for people with dementia.

Objective: To identify predictive patterns of spatial disorientation in cognitively impaired people during unconstrained locomotion behavior in an urban environment.

Methods: Accelerometric data and GPS records were gathered during a wayfinding task along a route of about 1 km in 15 people with amnestic mild cognitive impairment or clinically probable Alzheimer's disease dementia (13 completers).

Situation Model for Situation-Aware Assistance of Dementia Patients in Outdoor Mobility.

Background: Dementia impairs spatial orientation and route planning, thus often affecting the patient's ability to move outdoors and maintain social activities. Situation-aware deliberative assistive technology devices (ATD) can substitute impaired cognitive function in order to maintain one's level of social activity. To build such a system, one needs domain knowledge about the patient's situation and needs.

Detecting the effect of Alzheimer's disease on everyday motion behavior.

Background: Early detection of behavioral changes in Alzheimer's disease (AD) would help the design and implementation of specific interventions.

Objective: The target of our investigation was to establish a correlation between diagnosis and unconstrained motion behavior in subjects without major clinical behavior impairments.

Method: We studied everyday motion behavior in 23 dyads with one partner suffering from AD dementia and one cognitively healthy partner in the subjects' home, employing ankle-mounted three-axes accelerometric sensors.