Zero burden, sustainable?technologies to support independent living with dementia?(ZeDTech)

Dementia leads to cognitive impairment that impacts progressively on activities of daily living, erodes independence and impairs quality of life. The impact on individuals living with the disease, as well as on the NHS, is enormous. Technology has the potential to improve the lives of people living with dementia, but often a generic approach is taken that produces inappropriate and burdensome technological solutions. This approach often fails. To avoid this, we need to take intoaccount the particular needs to people affected by dementia and place them at the heart of the development process. Multidisciplinary teams need to come together in a coordinated way to develop, validate and integrate new technologies with existing dementia care to improve the quality of life of those affected by dementia. Our vision is to create a pioneering network dedicated to bringing together teams to develop zero or low burden, sustainable technologies that support independent living and improve quality of life for people affected by dementia. The network will promote interdisciplinary collaboration and knowledge exchange. We will focus on developing technology solutions that integrate with existing dementia care, are sustainable, and that can be deployed across diverse populations. We want to minimise the burden of technology and use it to empower individuals and their caregivers. Our overarching goal is to foster independence, improve quality of life, and ensure equitable access to innovative care technologies across diverse communities. The work of the network will focus on five key areas of dementia care need: mobility, communication, activities of daily living, health monitoring, and carer support. Within each theme our initial work will be to define where technology might have the biggest impact, building on the views of those affected by the disease. Guided by the technology priorities we have defined, we will provide funding for a range of projects that develop, validate and evaluate new technologies. Cross-cutting capabilities within the network will provide support for project management, PPIE/Co-production, device technology, software engineering, and data science/AI and scalability. We aim to maximise the use of data collected by integrating health and care data from multiple sources. Advanced machine learning methods will be used to uncover insights into health risks, care inequalities, and digital exclusion. Data will be used to inform timely, place-based, person-centred care. We will particularly focus on the co-development and promotion of low-cost, green technologies to ensure long-term feasibility and accessibility. This will include the use of energy-efficient materials and processes, as well as designing for long-term durability and minimal environmental impact. We will develop scalable technologies that can be rapidly deployed and linked across diverse geographical locations, demonstrating proof of principle for broad application. Our network will work to assemble and support teams to deliver technology solutions for the most important dementia care problems. We have brought together a core multidisciplinary team of investigators with expertise in computer science engineering, synthetic biology, neuroscience, and clinical dementia who bring diverse skills to this problem. In addition, we have the enthusiastic engagement of a range of network partners from health and social care, the third sector, industry, dementia research and dementia charities. We envisage the network will grow if awarded to provide a dynamic and representative group of the stakeholders necessary to produce a rapid impact on dementia care.