Improving pedestrian navigation for older adults with cognitive impairments through landmarks

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Nowadays, ageing is considered a global epidemic due to the rapid growth of the older population throughout the world. It is predicted that, in 2050, for the first time in recorded history, the older population is set to surpass the young population.

Therefore, an increase of incidence of age-related physical and mental impairments can been noticed. Dementia, in particular, is a well known syndrome which older adults are prone to develop. This condition is connected to a progressive loss of cognitive ability, leading to many difficulties such as mobility issues and time and spatial disorientation. A wandering behaviour, consisting on an aimless and disoriented walk, may present itself as

a most worrying symptom, sometimes leading to accidents, injuries or even death. Such issues lead to decreased navigation skills - the skills a person needs to find their way to a location - and increased dependency on the patient’s caregiver.

This report focuses on these mobility problems and describes the state of the art in related fields. As such, focus will be given to navigation methods used to instruct or guide users throughout a route to their destination. Facing the aforementioned issues, a thesis proposal is presented, with the purpose of aiding older persons in navigation tasks.

A prototype of a pedestrian-oriented navigation application, to be used in mobile devices by older adults and persons with mild dementia, will be developed employing new and emergent navigation concepts. This solution will follow a landmark-based approach, introducing landmarks in the generated instructions whenever deemed relevant.

This solution will be validated through the conduction of usability test sessions. The purpose of these sessions will be to compare the developed prototype with an existing application that follows a turn-by-turn approach, the most common navigation method.