2010 Volume 20 Pages 135-146
This paper describes decision processes of the system concept of an electric diary for promoting self-enhancement of persons with mild dementia. These persons need to be supported with their psychological situation, for example; anxiety stemming from their memory loss, depression from their cognitive impairment or other causes. Development of assistive products to directly support the psychological situation has been very difficult. In this project, we propose guidelines for the development of the kind of assistive products that have four features. 1) Psychological intervention model of the products, 2) Psychological confirmation of main functions of the products, 3) Psychological efficacy of the main functions of the products, 4) System concept of the products. The concept of the electric diary system was proposed according to these guidelines. It can select the contents related to the experiences promoting self-enhancement from all of the contents that the user has recorded, and then show them to the user. The investigation with 98 Japanese adults showed that these experiences categorize into achievement experiences and inter-personal experiences. And the experiment with a person with front-temporal dementia suggested the psychological efficacy of this system. This decision process supported the effectiveness of the proposed guidelines for development of the assistive products supporting the psychological situation of persons with mild dementia.
