The digital personal assistant aims to provide a beacon of calm for dementia patients
PAT is a personal assistant for dementia sufferers
I always want to design products to help people. My Nan’s been living with dementia for eight years and I’ve seen the problems that she faces in everyday life so that’s what led me to create PAT
Hundreds of visitors usually attend the annual Art and Design Degree Show at Staffordshire University’s Stoke-on-Trent campus but this year friends, family, employers and the public can enjoy the showcase from the comfort of their own homes.
The online DigitalGradEX20 exhibition features final year projects from more than 450 students and features a range of creative degrees including Fine Art, Cartoon and Comic Arts and Animation. .
Product Design student James Cooper, 21 from Shelton, has created a personal assistant called PAT for Dementia sufferers. PAT uses a touchscreen interface with four interactive categories – Activities, Reminders, Memories and Music – and offers practical help with reminders to take medication and brain puzzles to aid cognitive function.
“I always want to design products to help people. My Nan’s been living with dementia for eight years and I’ve seen the problems that she faces in everyday life so that’s what led me to create PAT.” James commented.
“I wanted to maximise personalisation, so you add things like music and photos to help patients reminisce about happy events in their lives like weddings or birthdays. This can be a really effective way to help them calm down when they are feeling anxious.”
As part of his research James visited three local care homes and discovered the benefits of tactile stimulation for dementia patients like interacting with animals or finger painting. This inspired PAT’s cuddly design and tactile fiddle section.
He said: “So far I’ve only showed PAT to my nan but as soon as she saw it her face lit up and she started stroking it!”
The online exhibition also features the work of students from Computing, Digital Technologies, Engineering, Policing and Science courses.
Discover more in this video from Photojournalism student Nom Ncube, who talks us through GradEX and presents this year’s exhibition on behalf of the photojournalism 2020 graduating cohort.
Browse all student projects at https://gradex.staffs.ac.uk/