Zinnia All Day: An application for mobile devices and connected TVs to assist care partners promote routine in activities of daily living in persons with Alzheimer's Disease and Related Dementias

About This Grant

ZINNIA SBIR APPLICATION PHASE I – PROJECT SUMMARY In addition to impairment of memory and cognitive functioning, persons living with Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias (ADRDs) exhibit a broad spectrum of behavioral symptoms. These behavioral and psychological symptoms of dementia (BPSD) are profoundly stressful for family and other care partners (CP). Key to reducing CP stress are approaches that mitigate BPSD by improving the quality of life for persons living with ADRD (PLW-ADRD), increasing their social engagement, and promoting their participation in activities of daily living. Among non-pharmaceutical approaches to reducing BPSD, those anticipated to be most effective are person-centered, foster the psychosocial well-being of PLW- ADRD, and incorporate individually tailored sensory stimulation and structured care routines. We propose to develop a new product, the Zinnia All Day app that will incorporate content from Zinnia Technologies’ successfully marketed Zinnia TV, into daily video playlists that CPs can tailor to a PLW- ADRD’s interests and support their day-to-day routines. Our goal in developing the Zinnia All Day app, is to reduce CP stress by reducing BPSD. The Zinnia All Day app provides innovative options for building individually tailored daily playlists. This is a significant advancement over currently available approaches, because it provides an easy way for CPs to structure personalized playlists, thus reducing their burden, while providing a positive experience and routine for the PLW-ADRD. Zinnia Technologies, Inc. is a small business, incorporated in June 2019 to develop non-pharmacological mitigators for BPSD; its potential is documented by successful marketing of Zinnia TV. In this Phase I application, Specific Aim 1 is to develop the Zinnia All Day app prototype based on completion of two sub-aims: (1) Conduct four focus groups with care partners (n=40) to determine daily routines, to identify the current Zinnia TV videos preferred by CPs for support of daily routines, to reduce BPSD, and to support PLW-ADRD participation in activities of daily living. (2) Develop the Zinnia All Day app prototype with time-of-day preprogrammed content blocks used to build a day’s playlist. Specific Aim 2 is to evaluate the usability and acceptability of the Zinnia All Day app prototype by conducting usability testing and semi-structured interviews with CPs (n=16) to determine: (1) usability metrics (task completion time and frequency of error), and (2) acceptability (satisfaction, perceived usefulness, and ease of use). We will use the feedback to build a conceptualized wireframe of the Zinnia All Day app, which will be fully developed and tested in Phase II.