Conversational System as Assistant Tool in Reminiscence Therapy for People with Early-Stage of Alzheimer’s

Abstract

Reminiscence therapy is a non-pharmacological intervention that helps mitigate unstable psychological and emotional states in patients with Alzheimer’s disease, where past experiences are evoked through conversations between the patients and their caregivers, stimulating autobiographical episodic memory. It is highly recommended that people with Alzheimer regularly receive this type of therapy. In this paper, we describe the development of a conversational system that can be used as a tool to provide reminiscence therapy to people with Alzheimer’s disease. The system has the ability to personalize the therapy according to the patients information related to their preferences, life history and lifestyle. An evaluation conducted with eleven people related to patient care (caregiver = 9, geriatric doctor = 1, care center assistant = 1) shows that the system is capable of carrying out a reminiscence therapy according to the patient information in a successful manner.

Keywords

• conversational system
• Alzheimer’s disease
• reminiscence therapy
• mental health