Closing the Loop in Ambient Assisted Living – towards Feedback and Interventions to support health and emotional wellbeing. Presented at CARDI Conference, Croke Park, Wednesday 2nd November 2011

1. Closing the Loop in Ambient Assisted Living –
towards Feedback and Interventions to
support health and emotional wellbeing
Julie Doyle, Brian O’Mullane, Ben Knapp

2. 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

3. 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
www.casala.ie

4. The CASALA Living Lab
• 3D CAVE -> Great Northern Haven -> 1000+
homes in community
www.casala.ie

5. 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

6. 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
www.casala.ie

7. Active vs Inactive Resident
www.casala.ie

8. 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

9. 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

10. Application Area - Wellbeing
• User-centred design of
applications
• Preferences for
reporting of wellbeing
through textual
questions, smileys etc.
• Piloting of questions
• Usability
www.casala.ie

11. Application Area - Wellbeing
www.casala.ie

12. Application Area – Home Safety
– Monitoring the home environment and providing
feedback – a closed loop
www.casala.ie

13. 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

14. www.casala.ie

15. Thank You
Questions?
Contact: julie.doyle@casala.ie
www.casala.ie