Towards a gamified recommender system to facilitate cognitive function in children with dementia

Dementia in children is one of the most understudied diseases in today’s research because it is extremely rare and often misdiagnosed. Characterized by a progressive loss of cognitive function, childhood dementia’s symptoms mirror the ones present in adult dementia’s patients. Due to the unavail- ability of research, no known interventions have emerged. Considering its similarity to adult dementia, adapting one of the interventions used in adult dementia patients to childhood dementia may be possible. Cognitive stimulation therapy is one of the most-widely used, non-pharmacological interventions in adult dementia. It subjects the patients to a set of sessions with themed activities that facilitate cognitive function. To enable at-home cognitive stimulation therapy sessions, a recommender system can be implemented that recommends activities based on the child patient’s abilities. This study aims to propose a conceptual model for such a recommender system, incorporating gamification principles to promote intrinsic motivation and encourage its use. Thus, the child patients are able to receive personalized cognitive stimulation therapy at any place.