Oliver Suardana

Oliver Suardana is an aspiring Industrial Design, currently undergoing their 4th and final year of the Bachelor of Industrial Design (Honours) degree at Western Sydney University. With a passion to engage in anything digital, Oliver has developed much interest in the visualization and graphical fields to potentially develop entertainment and games in the future. On this journey to enter the industry, Oliver has gained a place on the WSU Dean’s Merit List for 2021 for academic excellence in all his subjects taken. In addition, Oliver finds himself engaging in anything technology related in his spare time, such as learning new software to use.

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Socialged - A Mobile App for FTD Sufferers

This project explored the use of mobile applications in regard to the treatment and rehabilitation of sufferers of Frontotemporal Dementia (FTD) and the social-related symptoms they may suffer from. It's important to note that dementia is used as an umbrella term that encompasses over 400 types of disease in the world today. FTD differs from other types of dementia as it directly affects the frontal and/or temporal lobes of the brain and is commonly found in older persons aged 40 to 65 years of age. Initial research into scholarly articles found that sufferers of FTD have no intervening means available to them that specifically mitigate their symptoms, rather they use a variety of other intervening methods, ranging from physical apparatuses or digital experiences made for other diseases. Continued research found supporting evidence for the use of Augmented Reality (AR) technology in dementia and the use of Marte Meo, a video-based method that provides information on how to interact with others in daily life through short clips. Mixing these elements along with themes founded through a state-of-the-art review of other interventions used, the mobile application could be developed. Prototyping the mobile application took on various forms from physical modeling with sketches of interface designs and cardboard modeling and digital testing through mobile app deployment on JustInMind and Adobe XD. The final mobile application design became host to 3 functions: Single Player Games that directly target specific social-related symptoms of FTD, an AR experience that consists of navigational-based games focusing on the social isolation symptoms, and an attempt to implement the Marte Meo method through a selection of videos as well as including the choice to record videos for future viewing. This mobile application and the research behind it can serve as foundational knowledge for future researchers to innovate upon.

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