Concept and Pictogram-Based User-Interface Design of a Helper Tool for People with Aphasia

BACKGROUND

Aphasia describes the lack of the already gained ability to use language in a common way. "Language" here covers all variations of forming or understanding messages.

OBJECTIVES

The APH-Alarm project aims to develop a service concept that provides alternative communication options for people with Aphasia to trigger timely help when needed. It considers that a typical user may not be familiar with modern technologies and offers several simple and intuitive options.

METHODS

The approach is based on event detection of gestures (during daytime or in bed), movement pattern recognition in bed, and an easy-to-use pictogram-based smartphone app.

RESULTS

Agile evaluation of the smartphone app showed a promising outcome.

CONCLUSION

The idea of a versatile and comprehensive solution for aphasic people to easily contact private or public helpers based on their actions or automatic detection is promising and will be further investigated in an upcoming field trial.

Light as a Possible Guidance in the Toilet Room from the View of Dementia Experts

Digital assistants and guidance systems may support persons with dementia (PwD) during the independent use of the toilet room. The paper investigates the possible use of different light sources to provide visual stimuli for guidance. Demonstrators were presented to dementia experts to gather their views. While there is no evidence yet, it can be concluded that light stimuli in the toilet environment could be a (maybe only additional) option for guidance to be further investigated. The different methods must be always adapted to the local situation and the individual user characteristics.

Design Considerations for Novel Self-Adapting Toilets for Semi-Public Spaces

People with physical limitations face significant challenges when using existing toilets. User requirements work shows the wide range of user needs and confirms the high demand for innovative toilets, enabling people to leave home more often and participate more in societal life. The Toilet For Me too (T4ME2) project aims to implement and test a new ICT-based toilet system capable of physically supporting users, allowing autonomous and safe use outside the home.

Results of Field Trials with a Mobile Service Robot for Older Adults in 16 Private Households

In this article, we present results obtained from field trials with the Hobbit robotic platform, an assistive, social service robot aiming at enabling prolonged independent living of older adults in their own homes. Our main contribution lies within the detailed results on perceived safety, usability, and acceptance from field trials with autonomous robots in real homes of older users. In these field trials, we studied how 16 older adults (75 plus) lived with autonomously interacting service robots over multiple weeks.

Robots have been employed for periods of months previously in home environments for older people, and some have been tested with manipulation abilities, but this is the first time a study has tested a robot in private homes that provided the combination of manipulation abilities, autonomous navigation, and non-scheduled interaction for an extended period of time. This article aims to explore how older adults interact with such a robot in their private homes. Our results show that all users interacted with Hobbit daily, rated most functions as well working, and reported that they believe that Hobbit will be part of future elderly care. We show that Hobbit’s adaptive behavior approach towards the user increasingly eased the interaction between the users and the robot. Our trials reveal the necessity to move into actual users’ homes, as only there, we encounter real-world challenges and demonstrate issues such as misinterpretation of actions during non-scripted human-robot interaction.

Towards Smart Adaptive Care Toilets

Standard toilets in Western countries often do not meet the needs of elderly and disabled people with physical limitations. While the existing concept of barrier-free toilets and the emerging "changing places" concept offer more space and support, the fixed height of the toilet seat still imposes a major problem during all phases of toilet use and can limit the users' autonomy by requiring personal assistance. Thus, in the EU project iToilet an innovative ICT-based modular height adjustable toilet system was designed to support the autonomy, dignity and safety of older people living at home by digital technology enhancements adapting the toilet to their needs and preferences. The main requirements were: double foldable handrails, height and tilt adjustment, emergency detection and call, and ease of use. The ICT component in this approach serves a double purpose of enhancing usability of the base assistive technology while at the same time providing safety for independent use. A field test of a prototype system in real environments of a day care center and a rehabilitation clinic has been successfully finished. The application of the iToilet concept also in semi-public settings is currently studied in the Toilet4me project.

Towards a situation-and-user-aware multi-modal motorized toilet system to assist older adults with disabilities: A user requirements study

In the recent decades state of the art technologies appeared in many areas to assist older adults with disabilities. However, one very essential activity of daily life, the toileting remained without any relevant development. The iToilet project of the European Union focuses on the development of an intelligent and motorized toilet system to enable independent toilet use for older adults with disabilities. To begin the development, the user requirements of end-users were assessed by means of focus group interviews and questionnaires. The survey was conducted in Austria and Hungary with the participation of 74 persons in total (41 subjects with movement disorders, 21 caregivers and 12 healthcare managers). From the interviews, the ranking of functions and features based on the number of their mentions was derived. The raw ranking was modulated by the average ratings from the questionnaires that resulted in the final list of priorities. Our results suggest that a safe and intelligent motorized toilet system should have foldable handrails on both sides (especially for wheelchair users), motorized height and tilt adjusting mechanism for the toilet bowl, fixed toilet paper holder on both sides and emergency recognition with call function. Simple operation, storage and retrieval of user specific settings including bowl height, and user identification were also deemed as very important features, while the possibility to control functions with gestures was valued rather low.

On the Prototyping of an ICT-Enhanced Toilet System for Assisting Older Persons Living Independently and Safely at Home

Standard toilets often do not meet the needs of a significant number of older persons and persons with disabilities. The EU funded iToilet project aims at design and development of a new type of ICT enhanced modular toilet system which shall be able to support autonomy, dignity and safety of older persons living at home. Methodologically the project started with gathering user requirements by means of questionnaires, interviews and focus group discussion involving a total of 74 persons, thereof 41 subjects with movement disorders (primary users), 21 caregivers (secondary users) and 12 healthcare managers (tertiary users). Most important wishes were bilateral removable handrails, height and tilt adjustment, emergency detection, simplicity. In parallel to the ongoing technical development participatory design activities have been carried out at user test sites in order to continuously involve users into the design process and to allow quick feedback with regards to early prototype parts. The project currently is working on the finalization of the first prototype ready to enter the lab trial stage in spring 2017. The experiences will be used for redesigning a prototype 2 which is planned to be tested in real life settings early 2018.

[Should assistive robots have a "personality"? : Potential of simplified robot personalities]

BACKGROUND

In the European Union (EU) research project "HOBBIT" prototypes of assistive robots were developed in order to support a more secure and independent life style and trials were run at the homes of elderly users.

OBJECTIVE

The project "personAAL" aimed at investigating whether distinct behavioral forms of a robot ("personality"), despite an identical basic function (e.g. bringing a message) are perceived as different personalities by the test persons.

MATERIAL AND METHODS

For this study a robot was equipped with two types of behavior, one more introverted (purely function-oriented, impersonal and factual) and the other more extroverted (lively and enriched). The two types of behavior were demonstrated to 13 test persons (mostly older persons and experts from the care domain).

RESULTS

Nearly all of the test persons (12 out of 13) perceived a difference with respect to the behavior of the robot. Of the test persons 1 preferred the introverted robot, 9 the extroverted behavior of the robot and 3 had no preferences or stated that the preference depended on the context. The evaluation of answers to the Godspeed questionnaire resulted in significantly different perceptions of "anthropomorphism" and "animated" as well as in the total evaluation. It is also remarkable that no significant differences could be found for "likeability" and "perceived security". There was also no significant correlation between the preferred behavior of the robot and the self-assessment of the test person as being more introverted or extroverted.

CONCLUSION

From these results it can be concluded that acceptance of a robot does not solely depend on the mere function, which of course is a precondition but that it is advisable to offer a choice between different types of behavior in order to optimize acceptance.

Age and Sex Differences on the Hand Test

Investigated age and sex differences on the Hand Test across the life span, while statistically partialing-out the effects of educational level and verbal ability. Subjects were 150 individuals (75 males, 75 females) ranging in age from 20 to 86 years, assigned to one of three age groups on the basis of their chronological age. Participants were administered the Hand Test and the WAIS vocabulary subtest; in addition, years of formal education completed for each subject was obtained. Results indicated that even after statistically adjusting for the effects of education and verbal ability, a number of significant Age. Sex, Age and Sex, as well as Age x Sex interactions were obtained on the Hand Test. It was suggested that, as previous criticisms of projective research with the aged are met, a residue of important personality trends persists.

Integration of cognitive and physical training in a smart home environment for the elderly people

Our research work is towards a service that can support senior citizens towards their independent living and active ageing. As it is suggested, physical and cognitive exercise training can contribute to a significant prolongation of personal autonomy and participation in society across prevailing age-related impairments such as cognitive decline. In the current paper, the approach of combination of both physical and cognitive training--adopted by LLM project--is discussed related to other similar projects that have taken place in the area of elderly home care and training. The aim of this work is to describe the technical design details of the integration process of the LLM service, which is based on a Web service architecture and to discuss alternative interface elements to be included in the LLM platform in terms of enabling user accessibility and acceptance.