Alleviate

Inspiration

The Alzheimer disease is one of the most common diseases that occur as we age. In addition to the reduced ability to recall, the patients’ capability to understand and communicate with others can also decrease. Overall, communication problems were reported by 88% of carers, with 74% of patients experiencing difficulties following conversation, 70% having impaired reading and writing, and almost 50% having problems in speaking and understanding languages (Georges et al., 2008). Such communication deficits prevent the patients from communicating their needs clearly and also make it harder for their caregivers and doctors to adjust their treatment plans accordingly. Our web app is designed to slow down the deterioration of communication ability in patients through interactive conversations and mental games, and thus, prolong the patients’ independency and quality of life of both patients and caregivers (Woodward, M., 2013).

The Alzheimer patients depending on the severity requires intensive level of care from their caregivers and doctors (Woodward, M., 2013). Our web app includes daily reminder and several mental games that can not only slow down the development of the disease for patients, but also allows the caregivers and doctors to adjust their treatment plans based on the patients’ response. Furthermore, our web app can provide additionally full-day company and symptoms monitor for the patients, filling the gap when the caregivers are not around them.

What it does

Alleviate is a tool that connects family members and caretakers with their loved ones who have Alzheimer's. The goal of this site is to bridge the gap between caretakers through technology, allowing for more information when making future diagnoses and increased quality of care.

The site is primarily divided for the two main user bases, users who have Alzheimer's who will primarily interact with the virtual chatting assistant and the family members, carers and healthcare specialists who will interact with the analytical and message customization features.

The Alzheimer patient will mostly use the virtual chatting experience on Alleviate. This chatting experience will be tailored towards them as they will received curated responses based on certain keywords they input (will be expanded further in the message customization section). They will be able to receive daily tasks and reminders created by their caretakers and message the virtual chatting assistant generally. People would Alzheimer's would benefit from this as they would be provided with outlet to continue exercising communication skills and engage with activities that build on their cognitive abilities. Those around them would also be able to provide a higher quality of care from insights that can be gained from their responses to a set of mini cognitive tests.

The caretakers of the individual with Alzheimer's would be using the doctor portal to access the analytical and customization features. Alleviate offers the user the ability to access a range of patient profiles allowing this to be use on a personal familial setting or on a larger aged care facility scale. Each individual profile will include relevant medical history, name, age and the estimated stage of the disease. Within the analytical section caretakers will be able to gain insights from the text to emotion display that highlight the percentage and range of emotions that the patient has shown in their messages. A chat log of the messages is also available for caretakers, allowing for an easier way to observe patient responses to the cognitive and emotional questions that are answered. These tools can be used to inform further diagnostics and monitor for changes in symptoms. The customization section will give caretakers the ability to customize text messages, voice messages and daily tasks. Pre-created text messages and voice messages can be sent based on certain keyword prompts that the patient will use. The daily tasks can be created in consultation with a health professional and will primarily be a range of cognitive tests (a list included below in the linked notion page) and stimulating activities (e.g. draw a self portrait). The customization aims to provide personalisation for each individual user, ensuring that they are still able to hear messages that their family members create for them and have tailored activities for their cognitive health.

Overall Alleviate's goal is to help increase the quality of life for people who have Alzheimer's and allow their family and caretakers to play an active role in their healthcare process. Not many other sites exist that incorporate both the customized message service Alleviate provides and the analytical insights that can be used for future diagnoses.

How we built it

The web based application component of Alleviate is built using ReactJS and MaterialUI. We used Firebase for authentication and data storage. The virtual chatting assistant is built using Microsoft's DialoGPT model, and the emotion detection component is built using the EmoBERTa model, both are served using a backend server built using Flask.

Challenges we ran into

The main challenges we faced were having enough time to implement all our desired features. Initially we had more features planned. This included a customization panel for a musical playlist that could send songs that family members had chosen that were from a era of music that their loved ones enjoyed. A further analysis panel to store any of the images created the users following the daily prompts for easy viewing by their caretakers was also planned to help track progress of the disease. Integration of other popular mental cognition games or apps was further considered (e.g. jigsaw puzzle or Sudoku extension). Further focus on medication and tracking of common side effects of prescribed medication was also in the initial plan for patient diagnostics.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We are proud to deliver a website that covers the core idea of improving care for people with Alzheimer's and allowing their families and caretakers to be involved in their care journey.

What we learned

As a team we learnt more about the medical and personal impacts of Alzheimer's disease. Through this site we were inspired by the large role technology can play in improving access to care especially in a healthcare industry that can be stretched thin. On a technical level we learnt how to build a website using react and also gained experience with integrating virtual chat assistants onto web platforms.

What's next for Alleviate

We could have a list of side effects that are commonly experienced by the patients who receive medication treatment for patients to tick off on a daily basis. This response will be recorded and visible from doctors’ page, which can be vital for doctors to determine the combinations/ doses of medicines. Many of the ideas that had to be cut that were mentioned within the challenges section would hopefully incorporated in future iterations of the website.