Sleep Monitoring of citizens with cognitive impairments

The project works with sleep monitoring with the aim to improve the sleep of citizens with cognitive impairments (e.g. dementia) at nursing homes in a cross Nordic collaboration.

More specifically the project will work with the following objectives:

  • To adjust an existing sensor to monitoring residents' sleep and provide an alarm that complies safety requirements and personal data in the Nordic countries
  • To get a tool that objectively can evaluate efforts to improve residents' sleep and circadian rhythm
  • To support systematic professionalism and interdisciplinary collaboration with the residents in focus
  • To generate insights on sleep monitoring across the Nordics

The City of Aarhus is lead in the project with Reykjavik and Helsinki as participating cities. Aarhus has previously taken part in a national project on sleep monitoring that showed that the sleep of citizens at nursing homes can be improved by data from technology to monitor the sleep and daily, physical activities. By using data caretakers can improve the care for citizens who are not able to verbally express poor night’s sleep, several awakenings and restlessness at night. An improved night’s sleep increases the energy during the day and quality of life in general.

The project revealed a lack of sensors both able to monitor the quality of sleep and to meet the requirements of the public sector regarding data protection. Therefore, the project showed a need for development of new technology to meet this. A need that now will be addressed with this project within “Nordic Healthy Cities” where the technology used in the project will be GDPR-compliant in all Nordic countries.

This project on sleep monitoring will together with the other four projects within the “Nordic Healthy Cities” project serve to improve health and the quality of life through data-driven development and new innovative practices.