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…
Author: dt
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.
Interview Gerda van Tongerloo
We meet Gerda for the first time in Helsinki at Alzheimer Europe. She is present here as an ambassador for Alzheimer Netherlands and represents the Brain Power research group as a co-researcher. In a spontaneous conversation she talks about her vascular cognitive disorder, a precursor to vascular dementia. She touches us with her positivity and sense of humor and we agree to visit Gerda in Zeist, also to interview her for this newsletter.
Dutch Delegation Investigates Dementia Care in China
In October, outgoing Minister Conny Helder for Long-term Care and Sports paid an official visit to China. The ministerial delegation, including Wijnand IJsselsteijn of the ECDT, held discussions with colleagues and administrators in the dementia field, visited top universities, care centers, hospitals, memory clinics and home care shops. Exchange took place through conferences and seminars on dementia, with the overarching theme “Defeating Dementia”. The journey through Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong was extremely intensive, inspiring and impressive, with each location representing different worlds in itself.
Age-Fi DDW
Maarten Houben and Rens Brankaert from the ECDT were involved in the Age-Fi project, which could be seen and, above all, experienced at the Dutch Design Week in October. The installation was intended to get people to think about technologies that support aging at home in an interactive way, using dystopian videos.
Internship by Teis in Terneuzen
Our new PhD candidate, Teis Arets, talks about his experiences during his internship at SVRZ in Terneuzen. SVRZ is an expert in elderly care, and living, care and welfare are beautifully coordinated. For someone who, apart from an experience with his own grandmother, had no experience with dealing with people with dementia, this internship was an indispensable step in Teis' career!
Introduction of new team members
We would like to introduce you to our new ECDT team members! The new recruits are experts in HRI, Computer Science, design and paramedical studies. Together we conduct research into AI, warm technology, implementation of technology in dementia care and social robots, with the aim of improving the quality of life of people with dementia.
Interview Hilde Verbeek
Hilde Verbeek is professor of Long-Term Care Environments at Maastricht University. According to Hilde, we need to conduct the current discussion about elderly care “completely differently”. She is thinking, among other things, of the possibilities of small-scale residential communities, in the middle of our society, where the elderly remain part of the vital community for as long as possible.
Interview Francien van de Ven
In this interview, Francien van de Ven talks about her work and life at the Ouderenlandgoed Grootenhout in Mariahout, Brabant. The conversation is about the special “coming home experience”, life in freedom and the pursuit of “moments of happiness” for the residents of Grootenhout.
Workshop CUI 2023
Are you interested in designing conversational user interfaces (CUIs) for sensitive environments and involving vulnerable users in the development of CUIs? Join us at CUI 2023 in Eindhoven for our workshop: “Participatory Design for Whom? Designing Conversational User Interfaces for Sensitive Settings and Vulnerable Populations,” organized by Maarten Houben, Nena van As, Nitin Sawhney, David Unbehaun, and Minha Lee.
Writing Retreat in Zeeland
Part of the ECDT team enjoyed a few days together in a holiday home on the Zeeland coast for team building and to write papers together.