Detecting state anxiety when caring for people with dementia

Abstract

The care of people who suffer from dementia imposes significant stress on family members and caregivers. Often, these informal caregivers have no coping strategy to deal with these behaviours. Anxiety and stress episodes are often triggered by problematic behaviours exhibited by the person who suffers from dementia. Helping caregivers understand these behaviours could assist them to better deal with them and reduce caregiver burden. We report an experiment, using the naturalistic enactment technique, in which 10 subjects were asked to care for an older adult who acts as if she experiences dementia. We record physiological signals from the participants (GSR, IBI, EEG) during the sessions, that last for approximately 30min. A preliminary analysis of the data provides evidence that state anxiety can be detected using wearable sensors. Furthermore, if episodes of problematic behaviours can also be detected, the recognition of anxiety in the caregiver can be improved, leading to the enactment of appropriate interventions to help caregivers cope with anxiety episodes.