Supporting distant psycho-educational activities with a bio-feedback device

Caregivers of patients with dementia mainly face the problems such as psychological pressure in a daily basis, lack of knowledge and/or training about caring the patients and lack of knowledge about the consequences of dementia in patients’ behavior. These issues reveal the demand both for the support and the training for caregivers. Following this direction, we developed a web based platform to provide distant support for caregivers who are not able to participate in face to face sessions. This platform integrates services (i.e. teleconferencing, content management, learning management) and tools, such as a bio-feedback device for stress awareness to support distance learning and psychological support of the caregivers. This paper presents this platform, along with preliminary encouraging results concerning its usability and its usefulness not only for the caregivers but also for the psychologists who are training and supporting them.