Practicality Assessment of the Improved ICT-Based Dementia Care Mapping Support System

Area of Science:

• Gerontology
• Health Informatics
• Psychiatry

Background:

• Dementia Care Mapping (DCM™) is a valuable tool for assessing dementia care quality.
• Previous assessments of an ICT-based DCM™ support system relied on video data.
• Evaluating the system's practicality through direct, real-world mapping is essential.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate the practicality of an improved Information-Communication Technology (ICT)-based Dementia Care Mapping (DCM™) support system.
• To assess the system's reliability and usability in actual care mapping scenarios.

Main Methods:

• Three mappers conducted Dementia Care Mapping (DCM™) on five individuals with dementia over four hours in two different sites.
• One mapper utilized the traditional paper-based DCM™ method, while two used the new ICT-based support system.
• Mapping data, comprising 2790 time frames across 232.5 hours, were collected and compared.

Main Results:

• Concordance rates between the ICT system users and the paper-based user exceeded 70%, meeting DCM™ evaluation standards.
• The ICT-based system demonstrated high reliability in data collection.
• Users provided positive feedback on the system's usability.

Conclusions:

• The practicality of the ICT-based DCM™ support system for evaluation purposes has been confirmed.
• The system is deemed ready for practical implementation in dementia care settings.
• This technology offers a reliable and usable alternative for dementia care mapping.