Closing the Loop in Ambient Assisted Living – towards Feedback and Interventions to support health and emotional wellbeing
Julie Doyle, Brian O’Mullane, Ben Knapp
www.casala.ie
The Research Problem – Closing the Loop in AAL
• Research on sensor systems to monitor wellbeing and detect patterns of behaviour dominates the AAL research space
• Closing the feedback loop - The challenge of – Predicting changes– Prompting positive preventative intervention
measures has not been adequately addressed
www.casala.ie
CASALA Research Overview
• Unobtrusive, low cost ambient sensing in the home• Self-report daily health survey – ground truth data
– Emotional wellbeing, quality of sleep, quality of social interactions, cognition, physiological measures
• Determine statistical associations between self-reported health data with data gathered through sensors.
• Support people in managing their health and wellbeing through feedback and interventions– Orange alerts vs red alerts
The CASALA Living Lab
• 3D CAVE -> Great Northern Haven -> 1000+ homes in community
www.casala.ie
www.casala.ie
Great Northern Haven
• 16 aware homes at Great Northern Haven, Dundalk, Co. Louth, supporting independent living
• 100+ sensors in each apartment; 2240 sensors and actuators throughout the complex
• 24-hour monitoring• Interactive technologies include connected
TVs and tablet devices
www.casala.ie
Monitoring and Detection through Sensing
• Each apartment has 100+ sensors that detect– Presence– Flow of movement through the home– Use of electrical appliances – Home security
• We can detect changes, and decline, in patterns of social, physical and cognitive behaviour and infer changes in emotional wellbeing
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Active vs Inactive Resident
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Monitoring through self-report
• Daily health survey delivered through an iPad that measures– Emotional wellbeing - Positive and Negative Affect
(PANAS Questionnaire)– Quality of sleep– Quality of social interactions– Cognition (daily trivia question)
• Physiological measures including weight and blood pressure
www.casala.ie
Providing Feedback
• Information and intervention• Goal – early prediction of changes in
emotional state; novel ‘human-in-the-loop’ intervention methods specific to an individual’s needs – Improve quality of life before problems arise
• How can technology communicate our findings and help the person to adapt – how can it promote positive wellbeing
www.casala.ie
Application Area - Wellbeing
• User-centred design of applications
• Preferences for reporting of wellbeing through textual questions, smileys etc.
• Piloting of questions• Usability
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Application Area - Wellbeing
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Application Area – Home Safety
– Monitoring the home environment and providing feedback – a closed loop
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Usage and Usability of Devices
• Initial usage of devices for ‘fun’– Helps to engage with technology
• Weekly iPad class– Provides a social element– Residents showing each other what they’ve
learned, helping someone with a problem– Devices easy to use; concepts more difficult
• Technology on its own is not the solution– ‘Cultaca’ volunteers (‘support from behind’)
www.casala.ie