With people living longer than ever, the number of cases with dementia such as Alzheimer's disease increases steadily. It affects more than 46 million people worldwide, and it is estimated that in 2050 more than 100 million will be affected. While there are not effective treatments for these terminal diseases, therapies such as reminiscence, that stimulate memories from the past are recommended. Currently, reminiscence therapy takes place in care homes and is guided by a therapist or a carer. In this work, we present an AI-based solution to automatize the reminiscence therapy, which consists in a dialogue system that uses photos as input to generate questions. We run a usability case study with patients diagnosed of mild cognitive impairment that shows they found the system very entertaining and challenging. Overall, this paper presents how reminiscence therapy can be automatized by using machine learning, and deployed to smartphones and laptops, making the therapy more accessible to every person affected by dementia.
翻译:阿尔茨海默氏病等痴呆症患者寿命比以往长,其病例数量稳步增加,影响到全世界4 600多万人,估计2050年将影响1亿多人。虽然没有有效治疗这些绝症的治疗方法,但建议采用迷你症等刺激过去记忆的治疗方法。目前,迷你症疗法在护理之家进行,由治疗师或护理员指导。在这项工作中,我们提出了一个基于AI的解决方案,使复感疗法自动化,其中包括使用照片作为生成问题的投入的对话系统。我们对诊断有轻度认知障碍的病人进行了可使用性案例研究,表明他们发现系统非常令人愉快和富有挑战性。总体而言,本文介绍了如何通过使用机器学习使复感疗法自动化,并被运用到智能手机和笔记本电脑上,使受痴呆症影响的每个人更容易获得治疗。