Technology recommendation systems to support independent living in dementia
Parallel 1
17 November, 2026 12:00 – 1:10 pmCommunication and Connection
Jennifer MacRitchie
Senior Research Fellow
University of Sheffield
Summary
Identifying how someone living with dementia can be supported to find, evaluate and adopt a new tool or piece of technology in everyday life is key to understanding how technologies in general could best help in maintaining a good quality of life. Current systems across the UK are fragmented, with relatively little knowledge around how someone living with dementia could be supported to navigate available solutions, and choose to incorporate a new tool either to solve a particular challenge, or open up new possibilities.
With an advisory group of people with dementia, we co-designed a research project to explore how people living with dementia could be supported to navigate commercially-available technologies to suit their individual needs. From January – March 2026, we held 3×3 workshops across two cities and one town in the UK, with 41 people who attended sessions either alone, or with carer or family support. Workshop 1 was structured around identifying tools for different needs. Attendees were asked to discuss tools they might already use in daily life, such as Alexa, as well as to identify opportunities where they might want to try out new tools. Subsequently, attendees used the Alzheimer Scotland’s ADAM platform (About Digital and Me: an online tool to match identified needs with lived-experience recommended commercial technologies), completing a short questionnaire on the website to discover commercially-available solutions which were presented in a recommended list. Attendees evaluated this recommendation system as a whole, as well as discussing any of the selections that they might be keen to try out. In advance of Workshop 2, structured around the ‘unboxing’ of new technologies, some of the attendees had already selected technologies they wished to try out for a home-trial period of roughly one month. Those who took new technologies home reported back their experiences in Workshop 3, including where they had sought and found any support needed to set up or use the new tool, and whether the recommendation had met their expectations.
Using thematic analysis from workshop discussion and observations, three preliminary themes were generated. Social interaction and shared learning often predicated engaging with and adopting new technologies across the three groups. There were gaps in recommendation tools that went beyond supporting someone with their memory. Examples were in navigating sensory challenges. The ease of integrating devices in day-to-day use often predicted successful adoption longer term. Tools which were difficult to integrate for various reasons often resulted in disengaging from use as they brought more challenges to daily life. Findings have implications for the design of a future ecosystem where people have access to what is available, peer-recommendations, and support for continued use, or alternative tools.