Multi-modal Design to Promote Social Engagement with Dementia Patients

Haptic technologies applied as a means of fulfilling the social needs of dementia patients is an unexplored area of research. Patients with dementia face many limitations that prevent them from engaging with others. For example, as dementia progresses, it becomes more difficult to communicate verbally. We propose a multi-modal system that is personalized and incorporates both active and passive haptic elements can bridge the communication gap between verbal and non-verbal communicators and improve interpersonal relationships. We applied a community-centered design methodology to develop our technological solution so that it would be functional and appropriate for our target audience. We tested our solution, a book which incorporated haptic technologies, with our target audience, and our preliminary analysis of their feedback suggests that there are many opportunities in which multimodal systems can be used to improve the social engagement of dementia patients.