The Dementia Lab Conference 2025 in Portugal provided a unique opportunity for researchers and professionals to come together and share their knowledge and experiences on warm technology for people with dementia. A team of dedicated researchers from the Expertise Centre for Technology and Dementia, attended the conference. QoLEAD’s Ellis and Teis reflect on this inspiring event and share their insights and experiences, which have been of great value both personally and professionally
Ellis
Visiting DementiaLab was super great for me, since I am still new to the academic field, I feel I got marinated in the people, the topic and the language in three days time. A lot of content and topics, but almost everything felt super relevant for me, and it was not as “technical, dry or scientific” as I feared in advance (sorry for me presumption) yet everyone is passionate about the topic and most people told personal stories about their experience with people with dementia.
… and we met Viv, the AI agent with dementia, how she is designed and is being designed still, by herself, by those communicating with her, and the developers, so intriguing how she will be at the next DementiaLab. So many more great conversations and presentations helped me to find my focus in my research, still a work in progress though…
my favorite most heard word at DementiaLab was Mutuality… and this quote fits with that:”caring means not only achieving certain aims but also doing so in a caring manner,” specifically “in an attentive, responsive and respectful manner.” (original italics) Daniel Engster, “Rethinking Care Theory: The Practice of Caring and the Obligation to Care” (2005) – in the keynote slides by Yuriko Saito
Can not wait to meet those people again!
Teis
DementiaLab was my first international conference – super exciting! I signed up for the ‘PhD Day’, a doctoral colloquium where PhD candidates like myself had the chance to share our ongoing projects with peers. During this afternoon, we debated the ethical and aesthetic challenges we experience while collaborating with people with dementia.
My project focuses on discovering the role generative AI, such as ChatGPT, can play in fostering social connections among people with dementia. My dilemma: How do we balance the privacy of potentially sensitive personal data that could be used by the companies behind generative AI to improve their models with personalization that ensures the technology can be optimally utilized to grow with the skills of people with dementia in the long term? It’s quite a mouthful, but this is an ethical issue for which no obvious middle ground is yet known. From the conversations with fellow PhD students and mentors, I gained a lot of inspiration to approach this issue. Additionally, it was incredibly educational to hear about the other dilemmas researchers working with people with dementia face.
I thoroughly enjoyed the rest of the program. I was told that usually only a handful of presentations at conferences closely align with your own research, but here every speaker shared a story that contained a valuable message for my own research in some way. I take away that co-design as a process can be messy; that the unique dynamics that arise during research with people with dementia create a richness in experiences that cannot be reproduced in any way. I take away that involving the target group in a respectful and equal manner in the development of technology is of aesthetic importance. Aesthetics are not only in visible beauty but also in being human. I take away that I am part of a wonderful community that goes beyond traditional thinking when it comes to dementia; a community that thinks in possibilities to improve the quality of life of people with dementia with people with dementia. It is not the product, but the process that makes the difference.
I am already looking forward to the next edition of DementiaLab!
