The design of intelligent in-home assistive technologies: Assessing the needs of older adults with dementia and their caregivers

Czarnuch, Stephen; Mihailidis, Alex

doi:10.4017/gt.2011.10.3.005.00

Cited by 44 publications

(54 citation statements)

References 31 publications

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“…With SSAMI, we focus on reducing caregivers' burden through supporting the completion of their daily activities (Czarnuch & Mihailidis 2011). Our findings complement other statements in the literature, namely that activity monitoring is an important variable to reduce subjective burden (Lexis et al 2013).…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 76%

Design of a Predictive Scheduling System to Improve Assisted Living Services for Elders

Soto-Mendoza

García-Macías

Chávez

et al. 2015

ACM Trans. Intell. Syst. Technol.

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As the number of older adults increases, and with it the demand for dedicated care, geriatric residences face a shortage of caregivers, who themselves experience work overload, stress and burden. We conducted a long-term field study in three geriatric residences to understand the work conditions of caregivers with the aim of developing technologies to assist them in their work and help them deal with their burden. From this study we obtained relevant requirements and insights of design that were used to design, implement and evaluate two prototypes for supporting caregivers' tasks (e.g. electronic recording and automatic notifications), in order to validate the feasibility of their implementation in-situ and the technical requirements. The evaluation in-situ of the prototypes was conducted for a period of four weeks. The results of the evaluation, together with the data collected from six months of use, motivated the design of a predictive schedule. Such design was iteratively improved and evaluated in participative sessions with caregivers. PRESENCE, the predictive schedule we propose, triggers real-time alerts of risky situations (e.g. falls, entering off-limits areas such as the infirmary or the kitchen) and, informs caregivers of routine tasks that need to be performed (e.g. medication administration, diaper change, etc.). Moreover, PRESENCE helps caregivers to record caring tasks (such as diaper changes or medication) and wellbeing assessments (such as the mood), which are difficult to automatize. This facilitates caregiver's shift handover, and can help to train new caregivers by suggesting routine tasks and by sending reminders and timely information about the residents. It can be seen as a tool to reduce the workload of caregivers and medical staff. Instead of trying to substitute the caregiver with an automatic caring system, as proposed by others, we propose the design of our predictive schedule system that blends caregiver's assessments and measurements from sensors. We show the feasibility of predicting caregiver's tasks and a formative evaluation with caregivers that provides preliminary evidence of its utility.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 76%

Design of a Predictive Scheduling System to Improve Assisted Living Services for Elders

Soto-Mendoza

García-Macías

Chávez

et al. 2015

ACM Trans. Intell. Syst. Technol.

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“…Proposed technologies range in function from low-tech aids (e.g., medication pill organizers, schedules and notes) to higher technology examples (e.g., intelligent assistive devices that are contextually aware and can provide help when appropriate) [9]. Intelligent devices are increasingly trialled by researchers, but according to a rigorous 2014 review of the literature [10], the resulting studies are typically plagued by methodological problems, high dropout rates and technical failures.…”

Section: A What Devices Can and Cannot Domentioning

confidence: 99%

Positive design of smart interactive fabric artifacts for people with dementia

Mann

Oatley

2017

2017 IEEE 5th International Conference on Serious Games and Applications for Health (SeGAH)

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Abstract-Confronting the expected rise of dementia as a major health care problem raises many questions about the best ways to adapt the health system to deal with it. To the extent that intelligent assistive technologies can help, there seems to be value in comforting fabric artifacts enhanced by electronic games and activities designed to support, engage and entertain people with dementia. Local cottage industries which now support the creation of textile crafts should be empowered to scale up to meet the growing demand for such products. New design concepts are required to accomplish this in the face of rising costs and limited resources. This paper proposes a four-step design process that meets this need, and provides practical suggestions about how it could be applied in this context. A number of examples are included.

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“…The COACH system is targeted at older adults with dementia who are cognitively compromised requiring that any installed hardware remain out of reach. Furthermore, caregivers of older adults with dementia have indicated that any assistive technologies must integrate into the environment to reduce the likelihood of stigmatization [17]. To our knowledge, existing approaches have not attempted part tracking and recognition from a fixed overhead perspective using depth imaging.…”

Section: B Existing Tracking Approaches and The Coachmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…A controlled, clinical evaluation of the COACH system, utilizing the color flocking algorithm, suggested that colorbased hand tracking was effective and that the system could follow the actions of its users through the hand washing task [4]. These results motivated a needs assessment study to understand the role of the COACH in the lives of older adults with dementia and their caregivers, toward an ultimate realworld deployment [17]. To ensure the COACH was satisfying these needs, the system was deployed in an unsupervised state in a dementia treatment facility in Toronto, Canada [1].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…HOQ is a systematic methodology used to convert customer needs into design specifications. Using an HOQ approach, the needs of the users of COACH [1] were weighed against the technical capabilities of the COACH in a real world deployment [17]. The results of the HOQ analysis motivated the development of a more accurate and reliable tracking approach that would improve the overall performance of the COACH system.…”

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confidence: 99%

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Development and evaluation of a hand tracker using depth images captured from an overhead perspective

Czarnuch

Mihailidis

2015

Disability and Rehabilitation: Assistive Technology

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Abstract-We present the development and evaluation of a hand tracking algorithm based on single depth images captured from an overhead perspective for use in the COACH prompting system. We train a random decision forest body part classifier using approximately 5,000 manually labeled, unbalanced, partially labeled training images. The classifier represents a random subset of pixels in each depth image with a learned probability density function across all trained body parts. A local mode-find approach is used to search for clusters present in the underlying feature space sampled by the classified pixels. In each frame, body part positions are chosen as the mode with the highest confidence. User hand positions are translated into hand washing task actions based on proximity to environmental objects. We validate the performance of the classifier and task action proposals on a large set of approximately 24,000 manually labeled images.

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The design of intelligent in-home assistive technologies: Assessing the needs of older adults with dementia and their caregivers

Cited by 44 publications

References 31 publications

Design of a Predictive Scheduling System to Improve Assisted Living Services for Elders

Design of a Predictive Scheduling System to Improve Assisted Living Services for Elders

Positive design of smart interactive fabric artifacts for people with dementia

Development and evaluation of a hand tracker using depth images captured from an overhead perspective

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