Viewpoint: Co-producing assistive technology 

Ehtemam, N. (2025) ‘Viewpoint: Co-producing assistive technology’, Journal of Dementia Care, 33(6) pp. 22-23 

Neda Ehtemam describes her work with innovators and experts by experience. 

Assistive Technology can be really helpful for people with dementia. It is used increasingly both by people with dementia and those that support them. In my role at Alzheimer’s Society, I often meet people who are using or designing assistive technology in incredibly creative ways. From medication reminders and prompts to full home smart monitoring systems, there are so many ways that assistive technology can support a person living with dementia.

Through this work, I see time and time again that assistive technology is most successful when people living with dementia and their carers have been involved in its development from the very beginning. When people are involved in shaping technology you get genuinely helpful products that are designed to enhance a person’s life, not simply replace the human care or contact which still remains very important.

Assistive technology can be understood as any tool device or system that helps people carry out everyday activities in their daily life. For someone living with dementia, this might mean a clock that shows the day, date and weather, a wearable device that detects movement, or a digital assistant that offers reminders and prompts throughout the day. They can be specifically designed to be assistive, or more general technologies that become ‘assistive’ based on how they are used.

The key purpose of assistive technology is not sophistication, but usefulness in day-to-day life. From my perspective there is an opportunity for radical and beneficial changes using technological advancements and rapid innovation. However, this must be balanced with a real-world understanding, and testing with people living with dementia.

For technology to be genuinely assistive, it needs to meet the person ‘where they are’. Dementia affects every person differently. For example, differences in type of dementia, symptoms, comfort level with technology, and the home environment. That is why there can be no one size fits all of assistive technology and the most successful ones are the ones that allow for the individual to personalise it. A device that feels empowering to one person may cause frustration or confusion for another. In practice I have seen that even the most technologically advanced solutions can fall short if they don’t feel intuitive or relevant. For example, a device designed to help with reminders may include too many steps to set-up which can make it confusing rather than supportive. This usually happens when people living with dementia have not been included in the design process.

As long as the key considerations are met, there is a chance for the technology to be genuinely useful. It needs to be easy to use and familiar for the person using it, even if that takes some time. The balance between having time to get used to it, and also knowing when it has created distance rather than support, for example, when it feels complicated or intrusive. From my experience working with people with dementia the most effective tools are those that fit quietly into daily life, and meet people where they are.

That’s why co-production and developing ideas with people who have lived experience of dementia is so vital.

Co-producing assistive technology

Co-production means working with people living with dementia at every stage of the design process and most importantly listening and implementing their feedback to create something that is truly useful. In practice this can involve user testing, workshops, adapting designs, and having people living with dementia on design boards.

We have seen the value of this first hand in the Alzheimer’s Society Accelerator Programme in which the partners work with an Innovation Experts by Experience group; a small group of people living with or caring for someone with dementia. This group oversees all projects and provides high-level feedback to ensure that the voices of people living with dementia are heard during product development. In addition to user testing and other co-production methods this helps to shape the products towards usefulness. I’ve seen the difference this approach makes not just to products, but to the culture of innovation itself. To me, the most exciting assistive technologies are those that have been genuinely co-created. I’ve seen this in action when people living with dementia shared feedback on an app that completely reshaped the design. Their feedback led to changing the colour scheme, improving the visibility and made the app easier to use and more accessible for everybody. In this case, these contributions didn’t just refine the final product, they also shifted the whole team’s understanding of what is truly helpful and inclusive. This means that people living with dementia have shared their experience openly, and those designing the products have listened deeply and collaborated to create the solution.

This collaborative approach can take time, but the results are stronger and far more meaningful not only to the product’s success, but to building the foundation of a company that is ethical and empathetic to the needs of people living with dementia. As technology becomes smarter and more integrated in daily life the need for co-production becomes even more essential.

The future of assistive technology

Looking ahead to where assistive technology can take us, we are in an exciting period where technology can increasingly adapt to individual preferences and routines. Artificial intelligence and data-driven systems promise more personalised support through the integration into everyday life and the ability to learn from the person using it. This means that technology can support a person living with dementia as their symptoms increase, which in turn can help to maintain their independence for longer.

Undoubtedly this can raise important questions about privacy and inclusivity which need to be considered alongside each successful assistive technology. There is also the responsibility to ensure that any advances remain complementary to human care and support, not a replacement.

I’m encouraged to see growing recognition that people living with dementia must lead the conversation about what ‘useful’ really means. The companies and developers I’ve had the pleasure of working with are genuinely listening to the feedback, as the future of assistive technology will depend not only on how clever technology becomes but in the way it is created.

Assistive technology offers enormous potential to enhance independence and quality of life. When we design with people with dementia, not for them, technology becomes more compassionate, more practical and more sustainable. My hope is that co-production becomes the norm, and the starting point for every new idea in dementia innovation. That’s how we ensure technology remains what it should be, a partner in the journey, not a replacement for care or connection.

Links