Evaluation of an electronic calendar as helping aid for persons suffering from memory problems or cognitive impairment

The purpose of this study was to examine whether persons who are confused about day and date and frequently ask questions about it would benefit from using an electronic calendar that automatically changed to the correct day and date. 19 women and 2 men, age between 60 and 90 years took part in the study. All of them had to be reminded upon appointments, and half of them asked frequently which day it was. The calendar was placed in the user's home for 3 weeks. Registration of the extent of usefulness, usability and acceptability were addressed in a semi-structured interview at the end of the test period.

The present evaluation is a part of the EU project "Technology, Ethics and Dementia" (TED) which is a so-called concerted action under the Biomedicine and Health programme. Project leader for TED was Richard Pieper, Dept. of Sociology, University of Barnberg, Germany.