Cognitive Support for Dementia: Submitted to the CHI2006 Workshop on Designing Technology for People with Cognitive Impairments Abstract The perspective developed here grounds the design of cognitive prostheses in a thorough understanding of the problems that patients have in their activities of daily living. To this end two studies were carried out exploring the requirements of assistive technology that can support people with dementia in the home. This is the first phase of the design process, in which the problems of dementia are understood from the perspectives of professional carers, patients and informal caregivers. Interview data across the two studies revealed four themes (Problems in the Home, Underlying Deficits, Consequences, and Situated Factors) that help direct research efforts in designing cognitive support systems. Problems relating to cooking activities were frequently reported, and so subsequent work will focus on supporting this task. Keywords Dementia, Assistive Technology, Grounded Theory Analysis, Episodic Memory, Executive Functions Introduction Dementia refers to a collection of neuropsychological symptoms that are sufficient to disrupt activities of daily living. During the early to middle stages, cognitive decline is most profound in episodic memory (memories of personally experienced events) and executive functions (planning, sequencing, and attentional control) [1,2]. Executive functions are essential for goal-directed behaviour, and recent neuropsychological studies emphasis their role in daily functioning [3]. Existing concepts for supporting executive functions involve systems that monitor task progress and provide prompts when necessary. For example, Mihaildis et al. [4] devised the Cognitive Orthosis for Assisting Copyright is held by the author/owner(s). CHI 2006, April 22–27, 2006, Montreal, Canada. ACM 1-xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx. Joe Wherton and Andrew Monk Centre for Usable Home Technology (CUHTec), Department of Psychology, University of York York YO10 5DD, UK j.wherton@psych.york.ac.uk a.monk@psych.york.ac.uk