Caregiver burden associated with dementia-related agitation is one of the commonest reasons a community-dwelling person with dementia (PWD) transitions to a care facility. Behavioral and Environmental Sensing and Intervention for Dementia Caregiver Empowerment (BESI) is a system of body-worn and in-home sensors developed to provide continuous, noninvasive agitation assessment and environmental context monitoring to detect early signs of agitation and its environmental triggers.
This mixed methods, remote ethnographic study is explored in a 3-phase, multiyear plan. In Phase 1, we developed and refined the BESI system and completed usability studies. Validation of the system and the development of dyad-specific models of the relationship between agitation and the environment occurred in Phase 2.
Phases 1 and 2 results facilitated targeted changes in BESI, thus improving its overall usability for the final phase of the study, when real-time notifications and interventions will be implemented.
Our results show a valid relationship between the presence of dementia related agitation and environmental factors and that persons with dementia and their caregivers prefer a home-based monitoring system like BESI.