Indirect Wayfinding Navigation System for the Elderly

Abstract

Difficulty in wayfinding is one of the signs of ageing. Different types of people have the same difficulty in navigation including older people, people with mild dementia, mild cognitive impairment, and head injury. These problems do not only impact the person’s life and expose them to different risks, but their caregivers also report personal issues such as depression. This study aims to address this issue by creating a smart phone application called Indirect Wayfinding (IW) that helps affected people and their caregivers by acting as a guide to the elderly person. This paper reviews and summarizes the shortages of the current GPS-based solutions that need to be overcome, and then proposes a solution that mainly uses geofencing technology. This paper outlines the conceptual design, the mobile application, an algorithm to detect the direction of the user, feedback on the design from the caregivers, and an evaluation of the geofencing technology