Indoor and outdoor spaces can be difficult to navigate for people living with dementia. Dementia-friendly community initiatives can help address issues such as poor natural light and confusing layouts. While outdoor spaces can be enjoyable, they also present challenges including uneven surfaces, changing light, and limited seating. WHO guidance on dementia-inclusive societies emphasises supporting people with dementia to remain active in their neighbourhoods.

Key design features include consistent layouts and clear wayfinding. Apps could support navigation indoors (e.g. supermarkets using store layouts) and outdoors (e.g. parks with mapped routes), using natural language processing and sensors to aid orientation.

These apps could also support social connection with carers and networks. Such technology development is supported by facilities like the Kent and Medway Digital Health Lab, which provides a dedicated space to simulate healthcare environments and enable research, prototyping, and collaboration between humans, virtual agents, and robots.

Arts, sports and cultural interventions support the policy goal highlighted by Professor Chris Whitty of improving quality of life to reduce the impact of dementia over time. These activities enhance mental and physical independence and overall wellbeing. Research on psychosocial interventions shows positive effects on mood, social engagement and cognition, supporting everyday independence such as communication and daily tasks.

Technology can further enable participation in arts, sports and culture, particularly for people living alone, remotely, or with communication difficulties. Music, visual arts and exercise are also increasingly integrated into assistive technologies to promote activity, safety and daily functioning. Addressing the lack of a holistic approach, BRIDGES will develop the Creative Multi-Sensory Independence Support Framework (CMISF), which frames independence across cognitive, emotional, social and physical dimensions through multi-sensory, technology-enabled arts, sports and cultural interventions.

Effective in-person and online communication is essential for people living with dementia to connect with others, feel understood and remain active in their communities. As dementia progresses, adaptable tools are needed to support communication across the journey. We envisage developing language models tailored for people with dementia that simplify and clarify language by reducing complexity and jargon. These models would support natural-language apps, including indoor and outdoor navigation tools, and adapt over time to users’ changing abilities and preferences.

We will explore conversational AI and virtual human systems that provide meaningful engagement, companionship and support with daily tasks, navigation and wellbeing monitoring. By integrating data from wearables, diaries and health records, these systems could offer personalised reminders and early detection of concerns, promoting independence. Finally, we will develop cross-platform communication tools to bridge generational gaps, integrating traditional methods such as phone calls and television with digital platforms like video conferencing and social media.

Digital technology development and translation are crucial for exploring pathways and barriers to implementation across home, care and public settings. This includes designing new technologies and also adapting existing devices and platforms to align with cross-platform communication tools and other thematic applications. Examples include wearable devices and apps used to identify and validate digital biomarkers, which can be integrated into social robots and smart devices. AI can analyse digital biomarkers such as physiological, behavioural and cognitive data including sleep activity, to identify patterns and predictors of Alzheimer’s disease.

Further examples include assistive robotics, such as robot-based therapeutic interventions that support cognitive function and mental health through brain training, visual and language exercises, and physical interaction. Partnerships with people with lived experience are essential to assess these technologies, alongside recognition that high costs often create additional financial burdens for people living with dementia. Key barriers remain, including: trust and acceptability of AI and robotics, data protection concerns, and a lack of high quality and reliable data, all of which prevent wider scaling up and implementation in health and care systems.