Implications of dementia and age-related memory impairments on the design of IT-based systems

In order to support elderly people with obvious cognitive restrictions up until reaching a moderate stage of dementia to live at home independently, the BMBF-funded research project WebDA (Webbasierte Dienste für Ältere Menschen und Angehörige/Web-based Services for Elderly People and Family Carers) aims at offering a range ob web-based services to allow these different user groups to manage their everyday life by accommodating for typical declines of skills e.g. in the area of memory. All services are also accessible from remote by family carers to use the services themselves for in-stance the RFID-based object locator allowing to search for mislaid objects [1]. This service was subject of the user study reported on in the following where 30 test participants with reduced memory skills du e to age-related processes up until severe dementia took part.