A Camera to Help Dementia Patients

The camera from Microsoft Research can be set on a timer or pictures could be generated by changes including body heat, temperature, body position, etc. With the wearable camera you could capture your entire day digitally..and it helps improve memory as being tested with Alzheimer patients..and it viewed as a positive experience. BD

When Mrs. B was admitted to the hospital in March 2002, her doctors diagnosed limbic encephalitis, a brain infection that left her autobiographical memory in tatters. As a result, she can only recall around 2 percent of events that happened the previous week, and she often forgets who people are. But a simple device called SenseCam, a small digital camera developed by Microsoft Research, in Cambridge, U.K., dramatically improved her memory: she could recall 80 percent of events six weeks after they happened, according to the results of a recent study.

SenseCam is a wearable digital camera that is designed to take photographs passively, without user intervention, while it is being worn. Unlike a regular digital camera or a cameraphone, SenseCam does not have a viewfinder or a display that can be used to frame photos. Instead, it is fitted with a wide-angle (fish-eye) lens that maximizes its field-of-view. This ensures that nearly everything in the wearer’s view is captured by the camera, which is important because a regular wearable camera would likely produce many uninteresting images. This shows both images and relates body measurements at the same time.

Following the success of this first trial and the excitement it generated in both the research and clinical rehabilitation communities, we initiated a number of additional trials. We are currently working with over half-a-dozen patients in the early stages of Alzheimer’s Disease, and while these trials are ongoing the results to date are promising.