Application of a Tactile Way-Finding Device to Facilitate Navigation in Persons With Dementia

Abstract

Persons with dementias, such as Alzheimer's disease, have well‐documented deficiencies in way-finding, which often renders these individuals house bound and/or unable to perform daily activities without significant frustrations. A wearable belt has recently been developed that may have the capability to facilitate navigation for this population. Through a series of four small, vibrating motors that are adjusted to the cardinal positions of front, back, right, and left, the belt provides wearers with a tactile signal indicating the direction to their destination. In this experiment, the applicability of the way-finding signals to persons with dementia was assessed. To do so, participants walked a series of routes through the corridors of a hospital while wearing the belt. The results suggest the way-finding belt has potential as a navigation aid for individuals with dementia. The participants displayed a few deficiencies in attending to the directional signals that led to way-finding errors in which the signal was ignored and the intended turn not made. The article concludes with recommendations that the system of signal delivery be modified in a way that captures and directs the wearer's focus more prominently to the vibrotactile stimulus.

Keywords:

• navigation
• persons with dementia
• vibrotactile information
• way-finding

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The authors wish to thank Intel and the Alzheimer's Association (U.S.). This work was supported by an Everyday Technologies for Alzheimer's Care grant from the Alzheimer's Association (U.S.) and by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (Grant MT13129). Heather Carnahan is supported by the BMO Financial Chair in Health Professions Education Research, and Sandra E. Black is supported by the Brain Sciences Research Program, Sunnybrook Research Institute, and the Departments of Medicine, Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre and the University of Toronto.