Title: Detection of the onset of agitation in patients with dementia: real-time monitoring and the application of big-data solutions

Authors: Philip Moore; Andrew Thomas; George Tadros; Fatos Xhafa; Leonard Barolli

Addresses: Birmingham City University, Millennium Point, Birmingham, B4 7XG, UK ' Bangor University, Bangor, Gwynedd, LL57 2DG, Wales, UK ' Warwick Medical School, The University of Warwick, Coventry, CV4 7AL, UK ' Technical University of Catalonia, C. Jordi Girona, 08034, Barcelona, Spain ' Fukuoka Institute of Technology, 3-30-1 Wajiro-higashi, Higashi-ku, Fukuoka, Japan

Abstract: The changing demographic profile of the population has potentially challenging consequences resulting in a rapidly growing elderly population with healthcare implications including Alzheimer type conditions (a leading cause of dementia). Dementia requires long term care to manage the negative behavioural symptoms which are primarily exhibited in terms of agitation and aggression. This article considers dementia with a discussion around independent assisted living (IAL). We discuss the behavioural and psychological symptoms of dementia (BPSD) and the factors (precursors) to the onset of agitation and aggression. Context and data processing is introduced and the nature of knowledge considered. Next generation context-aware systems are considered with the focus on health monitoring. We postulate that the challenges lie in the effective realisation of IAL; achieving this however remains an objective of intensive multi-disciplinary research involving both clinicians and computer science in the development of software and non-invasive sensor technologies implemented in mobile systems.

Keywords: dementia; behavioural symptoms; psychological symptoms; independent assisted living; IAL; patient monitoring; patient agitation; intelligent data processing; big data solutions; agitation detection; patient aggression; context-aware systems; health monitoring; healthcare technology; electronic healthcare; e-healthcare; remote monitoring.

DOI: 10.1504/IJSSC.2013.056405

International Journal of Space-Based and Situated Computing, 2013 Vol.3 No.3, pp.136 - 154

Received: 20 May 2013
Accepted: 22 Jul 2013

Published online: 23 Aug 2014 *

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