Objective: To develop a protocol-independent integrated assistive smart-home technology to enhance the ability of people with cognitive impairments to live more safely and independently in their homes, leveraging the existing connected-home products and implementing intellignet context-aware ADL inference engine for home safety and independent living.
Design: Participatory Action Design collaborating with end-users and other key stakeholders.The developed technology consists of three inter-related components: sensor network, user interface, and caregiver portal.The sensor network integrates various connected-home products and sensors with intellignet software algorhthm which infers current contexts based on interactions between users and the environments. The user interface with a mobile app delivers context-aware home safety and impendent living supports to the users with appropriate modalitis. The caregiver portal is a cloud-based service, which enables communication-protocol-independent ubiquitous access, allowing caregivers/clinicians to control all aspects of the whole system.
Setting: Multi-site focus groups.
Participants (or Animals, Specimens, Cadavers): Four end-users with disabilities, four caregivers, and four clinicians.
Interventions: Before open discussions, 3 different types of examplary support services (timer, instruction, and reminder services) were demonstrated. For example, whenever the sensor detects the use of the oven or stove, the timer service automatically prompts the user if he/she needs to set up a timer and can set up the timer based on user voice inputs. If the user accesses a certain object, the instruction service automatically prompts the user with a notification to see if he/she needs an instruction to complete a relevant task, and provides a step-by-step instruction upon user needs.
Main Outcome Measure(s): Usability, use case, functions, and suggestions for further development.
Results: The feedback from the participants were highly positive. The development is innovative in several aspects. First, it provides a technology-protocol-independent modular solution, significantly reducing the complexity of technology applications. Second, the context-awareness features ensure the support services are provided at the most opportune moment when assistance is needed and users are likely to respond. Third, this technology has potentials to facilitate clinical application of smart-home technology, as more and more connected-home products are entering the market and a wider variety of support services can be developed in helping the eund-users to perform their ADLs safely and independently.
Conclusions: Empirical evaluation is planned to investigate the effectiveness of this work.
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