Designing forMemory DeficitKelly Nichols

Thesis Studio IProf. Scott PobinerProf. Louisa Campbell11.19.10

UbiquitousInterfaces

MemoryAssistiveTechnologies

Domains

CognitiveProstheses

Domains

Cognitive prostheses are devices, systems, and

strategies that assist the user with memory, attention,

concentration.

Who usescognitive prostheses for

memory deficit?

“The number of people age 65 and older is expected to grow from 39 million in 2008 to 72 million in 2030, and the number of people with AD doubles for every 5-year interval beyond age 65.”

1. National Institute on Aging, www.nia.nih.gov

Dementia & Alzheimer’s

“TBI is the leading cause of death and disability in children and adults from ages 1 to 44.”

“Veterans’ advocates believe that between 10 and 20% of Iraq veterans, or 150,000 and 300,000 service members have some level of TBI.”

1. Brain Trauma Foundation, www.braintrauma.org

Traumatic Brain Injury

“Each year, approximately 795,000 people experience a new or recurrent stroke.”

“From 1996 to 2006, the stroke death rate fell 33.5%, and the actual number of stroke deaths declined 18.4%.”

1. “Heart Disease and Stroke Statistics2010 Update: A Report From the American Heart Association,” Circulation 121 (2010): e46-e215, accessed November 18, 2010, doi:10.1161/CIRCULATIONAHA.109.192667.

Stroke

Cognitive Orthosis for Assisting aCtivities in the Home

Prompting device for guiding user through hand washing. Employs video tracking and audio prompts to keep the user on task.

COACH (2007)

http://web.cs.toronto.edu/research/profiles/coach.htm

A lab-based replication of a real kitchen ... [that] allows both the evaluation of pervasive computing prototypes and the simultaneous capture of the multiple synchronized streams of sensor data.

Ambient Kitchen (2009)

http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1579114.1579161

An ambient interface that would exist in a smart home

ecology like Ambient Kitchen and leverage the tracking

model of COACH

Cabinet Setup

Meet CarolineCaroline Dupree is a 76-year old woman living in upstate New York. Over her life she has held a number of jobs, with a clerical position at the local Veteran’s Administration office being the last before retirement. She enjoys gardening and walks over to her plot at the community garden as many as four times a week in the summer.

Five years ago, Caroline’s husband, Richard, started noticing a change. Caroline seemed to get confused while doing relatively simple things around the house. In the middle of washing dishes, she would stop and look around her, as if unsure of what it was she was doing.

Caroline was diagnosed with dementia. Her most recent score of 18 on the mini-mental state examination (MMSE), categorizes her dementia as moderate.

Photo: www.flickr.com

Caroline makes tea.

The trace of her task

Tracking task artifacts

Feedback

• Currently, tasks require human input for modeling.

• Interested in using video feedback.

• Unsure how “shadows” would be received by those with dementia.

• Not sure how this could be evaluated.

Further Thinking & Concerns

• Explore video playback.

• Prompting in the service of learning.

• Prevention of memory deficit?

• Scope of project