DAAD: A Framework for Detecting Agitation and Aggression in People Living with Dementia Using a Novel Multi-modal Sensor Network

With an increase in the population of older adults, the number of cases with dementia also increases. People living with dementia (PLwD) exhibit various behavioral and psychological experiences; agitation and aggression being the most common. Aggressive patients with dementia can harm themselves, other patients and the staff. In the past, researchers have used actigraphy to detect incidences of agitation and aggression in persons with dementia. However, actigraphy based solutions only consider body movement based parameters. In this paper, we present a novel multi-modal sensing framework currently being installed and tested at Toronto Rehabilitation Institute, Canada. This framework uses video cameras, wearable device (for both movement and physiological data), motion and door sensors, and pressure mats to collect various types of data that may be used to Detect and predict incidences of Agitation and Aggression in people with Dementia (DAAD). In this paper, we discuss the data collection, data processing and data fusion aspects using each of the sensors. Using the DAAD sensing platform, we present two pilot studies to demonstrate its effective functioning. We also discuss the challenges experienced with respect to ethics, hardware installation, software issues and data management.