Smart home-driven digital memory notebook support of activity self-management for older adults
J. Dahmen, B. Minor, D. Cook, T. Vo, M.S. Edgecombe
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AbstractMemory notebooks represent compensatory strategies that can be used to help individuals with memory impairments improve everyday functioning and compensate for problems created by lapses in memory. These external memory aids have been shown to help individuals record daily events in a structured manner, support retrospective and prospective memory, and reduce cognitive load. Although digital memory aids abound, they require a level of programming on the part of the user that is not practical for individuals with cognitive impairment. In this paper, we introduce a digital memory notebook (DMN) app that partners with a smart home to inform individuals about the activities they already performed and to notify them at appropriate times about the activities they still need to complete. We perform several iterative usability studies evaluating the DMN app interface and pilot test the smart home features in a live smart home testbed. Our iterative design process found that the components of the DMN app were generally usable by older adults and that satisfaction with the interface improved based on iterative feedback. Based on these results we anticipate that the proposed DMN app and smart-home partnership will be an effective technology for helping older adults with memory impairment improve everyday functioning.Keywords: smart environments, human computer interfaces, digital memory notebook
J. Dahmen, B. Minor, D. Cook, T. Vo, M.S. Edgecombe (2018). Smart home-driven digital memory notebook support of activity self-management for older adults. Gerontechnology, 17(2), 113-125
https://doi.org/10.4017/gt.2018.17.2.005.00