| The challenging aim of our three-year STREP proposal is to breakthrough with research that addresses the needs of those with dementia, particularly those with mild dementia in Europe. At about 2% of the elderly population, this comes to around 1,900,000 people. In order to achieve our aim, this means helping people navigate through their day. This entails cognitive reinforcement and may be expressed as the social objectives of our research for the needs of people with dementia, helping people to remember, maintain social contact, perform daily life activities and enhance their feelings of safety.There are few studies where people with dementia themselves describe their needs, but those carried out indicate the most frequently identified unmet needs are in the areas of information (on treatment, care and support, appointments), memory problems, and communication and psychological distress. A key strength of our consortium lies in the strong participative involvement of world-class medical/clinical experts with significant track records in working closely with people with dementia, to relate these needs.Our core technological objective is to research and prototype a successful, near-to-market, portable, remotely configurable, user-validated cognitive prosthetic device and associated services for people with mild dementia. The solution helps this group of people to navigate through their day, unobtrusively offering information and reassurance and allowing them to retain control over their daily life activities.That COGKNOW focuses on a solution that assists people with dementia to reinforce their daily life is fully in accord with Strategic Objective 2.5.11 on the development of innovative solutions for persons with cognitive disabilities, with a specifically stated aim to support the ageing population. Additionally, successful research results are critical in this area to address some of the fundamental challenges posed by the demographic changes. |