Impact of AP@LZ in the daily life of three persons with Alzheimer’s disease: long-term use and further exploration of its effectiveness

ABSTRACT

AP@LZ is an electronic organiser that was designed to support the day-to-day activities of persons with Alzheimer’s disease. To assess the potential of this technology, three participants (NI, JB, RD) were approached to take part in the study. They benefited from a structured cognitive intervention to learn how to operate AP@LZ; the intervention included the following learning stages: Acquisition, Application and Adaptation. Pre- and post-intervention measures were collected. NI, for whom a longitudinal study was conducted, still continued to use AP@LZ 24 months post-intervention. JB and RD also showed a gradual improvement in their performance throughout the intervention phase (sessions 1 to 19 for JB: performance increased from 50 to 100%; sessions 1 to 25 for RD: from 56 to 89%). The results of the use of AP@LZ in activities of daily living suggest that the application was beneficial for three persons with Alzheimer’s disease whose profiles differed notably (age, cognitive and social profiles). Thus, results indicate that they were all able to learn how to operate AP@LZ’s functions and to use them in their activities of daily living. Cognitive intervention appears to play an important role for the promotion of learning and adoption of such technology.

KEYWORDS:

• Alzheimer’s disease
• assistive technologies
• memory deficits
• rehabilitation
• activities of daily living

Acknowledgements

The authors wish to thank NJ, JB, RD and their families for participating in this study. We also wish to highlight the contribution of Dr Francis Langlois and the support of the Elderly Services and Independent Living Department (DSASA) of the CSSS-IUGS.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCID

Sylvain Giroux http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0602-5957

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by the Canadian Alzheimer Society (postdoctoral scholarship to HI) and the CSSS-IUGS Vitæ Foundation. NB is supported by the Fonds de la recherche du Québec –Santé.