Tech Can Help People Living with Dementia to Help Themselves, NJIT Expert Says

People with mild dementia might live more independently if assistive technology could evolve in parallel with their progressing conditions, according to new research from Alisha Pradhan, assistant professor of informatics at New Jersey Institute of Technology.

Pradhan and Clemson University assistant professor Emma Dixon are principal investigators on a three-year National Science Foundation grant, Future Proofing for Age-Related Changing Cognitive Abilities using Smart Objects as Assistive Technologies, with each school receiving $300,000.

“When we think about dementia, we just think about cognitive abilities. But at times their physical abilities might also change. In the morning they may be able to read something in a 12-point font, but by the evening, they might want to have a really large font, or things like that. With dementia, individuals not only experience changes in cognitive abilities, but also other sensory changes with time. But the interesting thing is, people have an idea about how they want to future-proof, how they can prepare and how they can organize or manage their current life, in a way that would help them in the future as well,” Pradhan explained.

Cognitively impaired people can go to great lengths to make the world fit their needs. Pradhan said that during initial research, she interviewed a person with dementia who trained his dog to obey an Amazon Alexa’s command, which told the dog when to fetch the man’s medicine. “People know what they want and how they can organize their environment and technology to achieve it,” she noted.

As such, the researchers will work on technology that users can customize by themselves. The project will explore three phases. In phase one, they'll interview to identify contexts in which older people with cognitive impairments need assistance. Phase two will involve users in co-designing tools that can augment everyday objects to provide assistance. Training materials will also be designed at this point. Pradhan’s team already developed the basis for various physical prototypes, such as a doormat that reminds you what to take when leaving the house and a plant holder that sends an alert when it’s time for watering. “We will use them as provocative examples for people with dementia to think about what they can build if something was this customizable,” Pradhan explained. The final phase is an assessment of the use and impact of future-proofing strategies.

So giving our users — who are going to be using these technologies — a say, having that agency in building their systems, will tell us a lot about the kind of systems we should be building.

Pradhan said she’s cautiously optimistic about the plan. “Many of the components are already available. Anyone can get these simple sensors and microcontrollers from Amazon and if we can create appropriate training materials and make them widely available, which is something that we intend to do in this project, then anyone can create their own assistive technology,” she said. She also observed a side benefit to doing her work in a place like NJIT — it teaches student developers and researchers alike a broader lesson about considering the needs of consumers who are different from themselves. For example, she said, most voice recognition systems are trained on speech from people in their 20s or 30s. This makes the systems sound good to some, but it may make them less accurate for older users with different speech patterns, leading to more errors and user frustration.

In addition, people with dementia are more likely than the general population to experience depression, Pradhan said. “Here, technology, particularly technologies that can adapt to the individual person with dementia, can support independence and even enable them to engage in activities they find meaningful, and as such can have significant impact on their mental and physical health," she said.

Others at NJIT are also working on research for senior citizens. Associate Professor Michael Lee, who is a prior collaborator with Pradhan, is planning to teach older Newark residents to code. Senior University Lecturer David Lubliner, in the School of Applied Engineering and Technology, teaches a course in geriatric engineering. NJIT’s Murray Center for Women in Technology invited Chitra Dorai, founder of a company using AI to help people with neurodegenerative disorders, to speak at their spring 2025 event.

“Often as researchers, we assume what older people want, what people with dementia want, and many times research has proven to us again and again that this is not the case. We build the newest, fanciest medication reminder, and then when we go and deploy it, we really see that people may not be that interested in using it,” Pradhan added. “So giving our users — who are going to be using these technologies — a say, having that agency in building their systems, will tell us a lot about the kind of systems we should be building.”