During the last year in the Innovation Engineering Program, at Halmstad University, a degree project was performed that was carried out during Fall semester in 2006 and Spring semester 2007. The project was performed by two students in corporation with LIC Audio AB, a company in Stockholm. The degree project was meant to result in a communication aid for people with a cognitive handicap. The project focused on people suffering from dementia because of the expressed need within this group.

This aid should first and foremost help in a conversation between a person with dementia and another person, like a relative or nursing home staff. The two main problems that occur during a conversation with a person suffering from dementia is that the dementian have a hard time understanding the conversation, because of the disease, and that they, because of their age, have reduced hearing ability and even though they would need a hearing aid, they don’t use it. It was established early on in the project that the aid wasn’t supposed to be handled by the dementian but by the other person in the conversation.

Through studies of different focus groups and a close contact with experts in the area, the project group have developed an aid where the basic function is based on improving the communication through pictures and amplified sound.

The solution has passed through both functional tests and user tests and has been evaluated by a large network of involved stakeholders, with very positive results. The project has already gained funding from Hjälpmedelsinstitutet in the purpose of adjust the product to a serial production and further funding have been applied for to put the product in production.

An application for patent was filed the 30/5 2007, by the patent office Albihns IP AB. The products further development is secured through the consulting agency Innovation Team Sweden AB, which has been assigned to the future project of bringing forth a complete product. A student on the program of Medical Technology, at the Royal Institute of Technology, is going to conduct a market research of the national and international markets. In this research the products opportunities on different markets will be analyzed.