If You Have Dementia, It's Time to Hold onto These Smart Socks!!

Here is a new modern smart socks technology to help enable people living with dementia

Dementia is a general term for loss of memory, language, problem-solving and other thinking abilities that are severe enough to interfere with daily life. These smart socks help protect dementia patients by tracking heart rates, sweat levels, and motion to sense. And smart socks are infused with comfortable, textile pressure sensors and it’s real-time when you are striking with the heel or the ball of your foot.

Smart socks possess the advantage of being able to monitor the contact between the feet’ soles and the ground. A Ph.D. student, at the University of Bristol Robotics Laboratory, invented this. These socks look like normal socks, do not need changing, and are machine-washable. He came up with a unique wearable technology geared towards people living with dementia: socks.

Using modern assistive technology to help enable people living with dementia:

Dementia symptoms vary depending on the cause like memory loss, which is usually noticed by someone else, difficulty finding words, difficulty handling complex tasks, etc. So these smart socks transmit real-time data to the app so careers can easily see if there is an increase in their patient’s stress levels. And They provide a steady stream of data to carers, who can easily access their patient's metrics on an app.

As per the Alzheimer’s Society, there were over 850,000 people with dementia in the UK, in 2019. It is expected to rise to over 1.5 million people by 2040. So, the researcher team chose socks as the existing options can stigmatize or even cause more distress among patients. Their research shows that smart socks can accurately recognize signs of stress.

There are other options to monitor stress levels by measuring heart rate and sweat, but these wearables are wrist straps that can stigmatize patients or create more stress for the wearer. Researchers investigate how wearable technologies and AI could help with dementia symptoms, and so developed the socks and a mobile phone app in conjunction.

Researchers show that the socks can accurately recognize signs of stress, which could really help not just those with dementia and autism, but their caregivers too. The person’s anxiety level can be monitored by caregivers who look at an app that generates data from the socks. Smart smocks can predict impending agitation and help alert staff to intervene before it can escalate into distressed behaviors.

The foot is a great place to collect data about stress, and socks are a familiar piece of clothing that people wear every day. This innovative wearable tech is a fantastic, accessible way for staff to better monitor residents' distress and agitation. Smart socks can help enable people living with dementia to retain their dignity and have better quality outcomes for their day-to-day life. Some people with dementia may present behaviors such as aggression, irritability, and resistance to care.