Dialogue support for memory impaired people

People affected by the loss of short term memory and cognitive impairment have serious difficulties in communication. This may lead to social isolation and lack of community access, a fundamental key barrier to independence for people suffering from Alzheimer´s Disease, the most common form of memory and cognitive impairment. We propose Automated Memory Support for Social Interaction (AMSSI), a system that helps memory impaired people with their social interaction. The system provides active support that may help reducing stress level of patients. AMSSI recognizes visitors, determines the purpose of the visit, monitors the dialogue, determines whether the patient needs support, and provides feedback. AMSSI is tailored to patient needs, it has fast computation, full automation, and can be handled by the patient without supervision. The proposed assistive system can be beneficial for improving the quality of life of patients with mild to moderate cognitive impairments. This paper describes the implementation of the first working prototype of the AMSSI system. Validation user tests are still to be conducted.