With the increasing aging population and the growing shortage of care personnel, innovation in dementia care is more urgent than ever. That is why, with a subsidy from the Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport, the Business Desk Innovation and Technology in Dementia (BIND) is being established.
Author: dt
ECDT to Dementia Lab 2025 in Portugal
This year, we will be participating with almost the entire ECDT team at the international Dementia Lab conference in Aveiro, Portugal, on 13 and 14 March. The team will be involved in several key sessions, including discussions on the social integration of people with dementia, innovative care perspectives and technology adoption. In addition, there will be a special workshop, set up as a nail salon, where ethical issues in dementia research will be discussed and explored in an accessible way.
ICT&health World Conference 2025
On Thursday 30 January 2025, Prof. dr. Henk Herman Nap (TU/e – ECDT) gave a session on AI in long-term care at the ICT&health World Conference 2025 in Maastricht. During this session, he shared the (im)possibilities of AI innovations in long-term care with more than 100 interested parties. It was a special conference day, especially for nurses.
DEMTECH
We are proud to announce the launch of DEMTECH! This is a new collaborative program in which ECDT joins forces with UMCG, Alzheimer Nederland, Vilans, Hanze University of Applied Sciences Groningen, and Sara Robotics to work on innovative technologies that support people with dementia to live independently at home for longer.
Inspiring interview with Henk Herman Nap
and interview with our brand new Professor prof.dr. Henk Herman Nap, coordinator Digital Care at Vilans and now also professor at HTI and ECDT since September. He has been committed to the implementation and development of digital care and technology for twenty years. With a passion for co-design and value determination, he develops innovations that strengthen the autonomy and well-being of the elderly…
Celebrating 80 years of liberation!
September 18th is the day that Eindhoven was liberated in 1944, and this year it was celebrated in many places in the city. Three ECDT team members celebrated this special occasion together with the Meerpalers and they lost themselves in making colorful torches. It was special to see how a simple goal – making a plastic, colorful fake torch – created connection on many different levels. The result was definitely something to be proud of…
Festival of Disruption
At the Festival of Disruption, organized by Eindhoven Engine, Rucha Khot and Adhityan Raja gave an engaging and thought-provoking workshop to explore what the future of assistive agents might look like. Are you a designer, engineer, caregiver, ethicist or someone interested in these exciting and meaningful areas? You are cordially invited to join the next workshop. For more information or to register, please contact Adhityan Raja at a.raja@tue.nl or Rucha Khot at r.khot@tue.nl.
Call for research into malnutrition in the elderly
For a study on malnutrition in the elderly, we are looking for elderly people living at home with nutritional care and their loved ones or informal caregivers. Are you or do you know someone who can talk or think about this? Then Isa Dantuma (i.dantuma@vilans.nl) or Janna Albers (jwalberts@tue.nl or j.alberts@vilans.nl ) would like to hear from you!
The DIGIT project
Last month, the first workshop of the DIGIT project took place in Geneva, Switzerland. Researchers from Europe and beyond, including the ECDT, came together for an international study that followed the Alzheimer Europe conference. The project is led by Rens Brankaert from the ECDT, together with Rick and Vincent Eurlings from Aumens…
The added value of the Meerpaal
The ECDT collaborates with various Living Labs, the Meerpaal is the pioneer and mainly concerns daytime activities. What makes this test garden/playground in the community center De Meerpaal so worthwhile? With a look forward and back, we spoke about this with Trudy van Helmond and Ans Tummers-Heemels in inspiring interviews…
Warm Technology Challenge 2024
We proudly present the winners of the Warm Technology Challenge 2024! During this third edition, no less than three prizes were awarded to promising students who submitted their innovative concepts for warm technology, aimed at people with dementia. The festive award ceremony took place on June 27th in the Natlab, Eindhoven, and was led by Marco Blom during the closing of the Warm Technology Conference.
Introducing two new colleagues
We are introducing two new members to our team: Ellis Bartholomeus and Adhityan Raja, both with unique backgrounds and focus in their work around technology and dementia care. Ellis Bartholomeus, PhD candidate Human Technology Interaction, has spent years designing games for impact and emphasizes the importance of inclusivity in the development process. Adhityan Raja, EngD candidate Industrial Design, focuses on the use of conversational AI in dementia care, taking into account different cultural contexts…
Summer school KU Leuven
Last July, several ECDT staff members participated in the Ethics in Dementia Care Summer School in Leuven, Belgium. Coordinator prof. Chris Gastmans from KU Leuven, together with several colleagues and guest speakers, gave an interesting and intensive program an introduction and overview of the many ethical issues that one encounters in the care of vulnerable people in dementia care…
Health by Tech
This annual conference in the far north of our country deals with current topics in healthcare, ranging from eHealth and mHealth to the applications of big data and artificial intelligence. After an initial online survey during COVID-19 and a second one almost two years later among healthcare personnel, Ans Tummers presents her findings in Groningen…
Writing Retreat in the Ardennes
We ended the academic year '23-'24 inspired with our annual writing retreat. The Writing Retreat is a great opportunity to really retreat with our team and work together, read and write on research around technology and dementia for several days in a row…
Fan Wang about her PhD work
“During the first months of my PhD, I delved deeply into this subject through my participation in the HOMEDEM Training School at Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e), where I met many researchers committed to improving quality of the lives of people with dementia…”
ECDT at HRI 2023
This year's Human-Robot Interaction (HRI) conference (in Stockholm, Sweden- from March 13–16.) offered a great opportunity to connect with people in the HRI community and industry and to stay updated on the most recent developments in human-robot interaction. The theme this year was “HRI for all,” with a focus on theories, methods, designs, studies, and technical advances that promote diversity and inclusion in HRI.
Research into personal experiences
CHI 2024 took place in Hawaii, where ECDT contributed with several papers, courses and workshops. Maarten Houben and Rens Brankaert presented the paper: “Design Opportunities for Care Transitions in Dementia: Understanding Informal Caregivers' Experiences Through a Practice-Informed Approach”. This paper reports on an interview study exploring the experiences and reflections of informal caregivers of people with dementia before, during and after the transition of their relative with dementia to formal residential care.
Research into communication challenges
CHI 2024 was held in Hawaii, where ECDT contributed with several papers, courses and workshops. Among the presentations was Yvon Ruitenburg's paper entitled “Evolving Presentation of Self: The Influence of Dementia Communication Challenges on Everyday Interactions”. This paper examines how communication challenges related to dementia impact a person's self-presentation in everyday interactions, with implications for Human-Computer Interaction research and the development of assistive technologies.
The ECDT will present its work at CHI 2024!
Researchers from the Expertise Center for Dementia & Technology will again present their work this year at the annual CHI conference (pronounced 'kai'), which will take place in Honolulu, Hawaii from May 11 to 16, 2024. The ACM CHI conference is the largest international conference in the field of human-computer interaction. Various members of the ECDT team will give presentations about their research and a course will be given again this year.