RadioMe – Intelligent Radio for People with Dementia

RadioMe is a £2.7 million EPSRC-funded project that will use artificial intelligence to adapt and personalise live radio, with the aim of transforming the lives of people living alone with dementia.

UK care of Alzheimer’s agitation on its own costs £2 billion yearly. People with Dementia (PWD) generally have better quality of life in their own homes and wish to remain there. RadioMe helps maintain the UK’s history of pioneering music therapy by incorporating bio-sensor technology, and providing procedures for music therapists to work with technology.

The goals of the project are to:
  • increase quality of life for people with mild to moderate dementia (here-after referred to as PWD) by reducing agitation impact and prompting performance of vital daily tasks;
  • alleviate the burden for families caring for lone-living PWD;
  • reduce care / clinical interventions;
  • simplify the operation of an in-home assistive system.

The project is a collaboration with the Interdisciplinary Centre for Computer Music Research (ICCMR) and Centre for Health Technology at the University of Plymouth, the Centre for Dementia Studies at Brighton and Sussex Medical School and, the Cambridge Institute for Music Therapy Research at Anglia Ruskin University.

The University of Glasgow will produce following outcomes:

  • Diary System & Interface
    • Diary with UI that careror PWD can operate comfortably;
    • reminder construction protocol for making repeated reminder word-ing less irritating;
    • protocol for ensuring fol-lowed reminders will always lead to safe behaviour.
  • Agitation/Step Detection & Agitation Reduction
    • In-home tested agitation detection that triggers tested agita-tion-reducing music. Enables agitation reduc-ing music as part of the remixed radio;
    • tested approximate step detection.