Perspectives and recommendations of individuals with tetraplegia regarding wearable cameras for monitoring hand function at home: Insights from a community-based study

Perspectives and expectations of stroke survivors using egocentric cameras for monitoring hand function at home: a mixed methods study

PURPOSE

Most stroke survivors have remaining upper limb impairment six months after stroke and require additional rehabilitation and help from family members to enhance their performance of daily activities. First-person (egocentric) video has been proposed to capture the activities of daily living (ADLs) of stroke survivors in order to assess their hand function at home. This study explored the experiences and expectations of stroke survivors regarding the use of egocentric cameras in daily life for rehabilitation applications.

METHODS

Twenty-one chronic stroke survivors recruited for the study were asked to record three sessions of 1.5 h of video of their ADLs at home over two weeks. Their experiences and expectations after completing the recordings were discussed using a structured questionnaire and a semi-structured interview. The questionnaire and interview data were analysed using descriptive statistics and content analysis, respectively. The results were further integrated using a mixed methods analysis for mutual explanation and elaboration.

RESULTS

The themes generated were Camera Usability, Privacy Concerns Related to Home Recordings, Future Use of the Camera in Public, and Information Usefulness. The participants perceived that the camera was easy to use, the information obtained from the recordings was beneficial, and no major concerns about recording at home. A discreet camera and a solution to privacy issues were prerequisites to recording tasks in public.

CONCLUSIONS

There was high acceptance among stroke survivors regarding the use of wearable cameras for rehabilitation purposes in the future. Concerns to be managed include discomfort, self-consciousness, and the privacy of others.Implications for rehabilitationThe egocentric camera was easy for the stroke survivors to use at home. However, they expressed a preference for cameras to be less noticeable and lighter in the future to minimize self-consciousness and discomfort.Expectations for future use of an egocentric camera for upper limb rehabilitation at home from the perspectives of stroke survivors included receiving feedback on their hand function in daily life and guidance on how to improve function.Privacy concerns of stroke survivors regarding recording activities of daily living were mostly avoidable by planning in advance. However, some personal hygiene tasks and virtual meetings were recorded by accident. A checklist of common activities that may raise privacy issues can be provided along with the camera to serve as a reminder to avoid these issues.

Acceptance and Privacy Perceptions Toward Video-based Active and Assisted Living technologies: Scoping Review (Preprint)

BACKGROUND

The aging society posits new socioeconomic challenges to which a potential solution is active and assisted living (AAL) technologies. Visual-based sensing systems are technologically among the most advantageous forms of AAL technologies in providing health and social care; however, they come at the risk of violating rights to privacy. With the immersion of video-based technologies, privacy-preserving smart solutions are being developed; however, the user acceptance research about these developments is not yet being systematized.

OBJECTIVE

With this scoping review, we aimed to gain an overview of existing studies examining the viewpoints of older adults and/or their caregivers on technology acceptance and privacy perceptions, specifically toward video-based AAL technology.

METHODS

A total of 22 studies were identified with a primary focus on user acceptance and privacy attitudes during a literature search of major databases. Methodological quality assessment and thematic analysis of the selected studies were executed and principal findings are summarized. The PRISMA-ScR (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses Extension for Scoping Reviews) guidelines were followed at every step of this scoping review.

RESULTS

Acceptance attitudes toward video-based AAL technologies are rather conditional, and are summarized into five main themes seen from the two end-user perspectives: caregiver and care receiver. With privacy being a major barrier to video-based AAL technologies, security and medical safety were identified as the major benefits across the studies.

CONCLUSIONS

This review reveals a very low methodological quality of the empirical studies assessing user acceptance of video-based AAL technologies. We propose that more specific and more end user- and real life-targeting research is needed to assess the acceptance of proposed solutions.

Measuring Hand Use in the Home after Cervical Spinal Cord Injury Using Egocentric Video

Egocentric video has recently emerged as a potential solution for monitoring hand function in individuals living with tetraplegia in the community, especially for its ability to detect functional use in the home environment. The aim of this study was to develop and validate a wearable vision-based system for measuring hand use in the home among individuals living with tetraplegia. Several deep learning algorithms for detecting functional hand-object interactions were developed and compared. The most accurate algorithm was used to extract measures of hand function from 65 h of unscripted video recorded at home by 20 participants with tetraplegia. These measures were: the percentage of interaction time over total recording time (Perc); the average duration of individual interactions (Dur); and the number of interactions per hour (Num). To demonstrate the clinical validity of the technology, egocentric measures were correlated with validated clinical assessments of hand function and independence (Graded Redefined Assessment of Strength, Sensibility and Prehension [GRASSP], Upper Extremity Motor Score [UEMS], and Spinal Cord Independent Measure [SCIM]). Hand-object interactions were automatically detected with a median F1-score of 0.80 (0.67-0.87). Our results demonstrated that higher UEMS and better prehension were related to greater time spent interacting, whereas higher SCIM and better hand sensation resulted in a higher number of interactions performed during the egocentric video recordings. For the first time, measures of hand function automatically estimated in an unconstrained environment in individuals with tetraplegia have been validated against internationally accepted measures of hand function. Future work will necessitate a formal evaluation of the reliability and responsiveness of the egocentric-based performance measures for hand use.