EAGER: US Ignite: In-Home Monitoring in Support of Caregivers for Patients with Dementia

University Of Kansas Medical Center Research Institute Inc, Kansas City KS

Investigators

Abstract

This project develops, integrates, and tests advanced video and networking technologies to support family caregivers in managing behavioral symptoms of individuals with dementia, a growing public health problem that adds to caregiver stress, increases morbidity and mortality, and accelerates nursing home placement. The project builds upon a recent University of Kansas Medical Center (KUMC) clinical pilot study that tested the application of video monitoring in the home to support family caregivers of persons with Alzheimer's disease who exhibited disruptive behaviors. The proposed project focuses on expanding the in-home technological tools available to strengthen the linkage between patients and caregivers with their healthcare team via multi-camera full-motion/high definition video monitoring. The proposed work will exploit the capabilities of GENI, in general, and the KU GpENI and KanREN-GENI projects in particular to help meet the goals of the US Ignite program, and explore the benefits of flexible networking to exploit high-bandwidth access to support family caregivers. Additionally, Google's deployment this year of a 1 Gpbs fiber network throughout Kansas City provides the ideal environment for measuring the impact that ultra-high speed networking to the home will have on health care. Captured video will be streamed and stored on secure cloud-based servers. Upon notification and authorization by caregivers, the videos can be made accessible for viewing by clinical experts from web-enabled devices for the purpose of providing feedback to the caregivers in the home. Broader Impact: The technology platform will be applicable to a broad range of both physical and behavioral illnesses/conditions and caregiver/parental situations with the subsequent result being: 1) improvement in care/treatment within home-based settings; 2) avoidance or reduction of nursing home placements, hospital admissions/readmissions or other institutionalizations; 3) improvement in the quality of life of caregivers; and 4) overall reduced costs for the health care system. Potential applications for this monitoring platform may also be extendable to care settings outside the home. The project will also catalyze multidisciplinary research and education between electrical engineering/computer science, medical informatics, nursing, and other health professions and support the training of graduate students.