Paul Jansons

Managing the everyday symptoms of dementia poses significant challenges to daily activities and independence. Rehabilitation programs have shown great improvements in cognitive function and ability for people living with dementia. Unfortunately, there are significant barriers to accessing this type of care regularly, including geographical and travel difficulties, and limited availability of trained healthcare professionals. Technology-based rehabilitation offers an alternative that could provide easily accessible, sustainable, cost-effective and home-based care for people living with dementia.

A personalised cognitive strategy program delivered by an Amazon Alexa Echo Show 8 (Alexa) using natural conversations may be more acceptable than some of the traditional digital health approaches, such as internet browsers, tablets and smart phones. Alexas present an ideal method to deliver personalised strategies and customised two-way conversational support to aid everyday activities, like prompting medication reminders, navigating appointments, assisting with household chores and breaking down complex activities into manageable steps. Alexas also enable regular feedback to prescribing health professionals.

Dr Paul Jansons conducted a co-designed 12-week trial of this home-based rehabilitation program delivered via an Alexa in older adults aged 60 years and older with mild cognitive impairment and/or dementia. Participants showed significant improvements in managing everyday tasks, cognitive function and physical function compared to those not using the system. Additionally, the study demonstrated high retention and adherence rates. This suggests there’s potential to implement the rehabilitation program across Australia. Dr Jansons’ future research will focus on using this technology to reduce healthcare inequalities in people living with dementia by providing high-quality and cost-effective services to under-served populations, such as low-income individuals and people in remote and rural areas.

Read more about this exciting project

At the time of the award, Paul Jansons was an exercise physiologist and Research Fellow at the Institute for Physical Activity and Nutrition, Deakin University. He also held an honorary appointment with the Bone and Muscle Research Group, within the School of Clinical Sciences at Monash Health, Monash University.