SCC-IRG Track 1 Reducing Loneliness for Long Term Care Older Adults through Collaborative Augmented Reality

SCC-IRG 第 1 轨道通过协作增强现实减少长期护理老年人的孤独感

• 批准号: 2225890
• 负责人: Nilanjan Sarkar
• 金额: $ 225万
• 依托单位: Vanderbilt University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2022
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2022-10-01 至 2026-09-30
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2225890&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: SCC; IRG; Track; Reducing; Loneliness

This project seeks to reduce loneliness in older adults who reside in long term care (LTC) communities through new augmented reality (AR) technology. Loneliness is a serious condition that is related to increases in heart disease, depression, suicide, mental and physical decline, and reduced quality of life and death. Two out of five older adults in the U.S. report being lonely. Even more alarming, three out of four LTC older adults experience loneliness. The COVID-19 pandemic, with its accompanying safety protocols, has intensified loneliness across the LTCs. The project will discover how augmented reality can reduce loneliness in LTC older adults by linking them with family members who reside elsewhere. This project will allow older adults and family members to see each other’s 3-dimensional realistic images, eat meals together, and interact with one another in various activities, such as playing cards. Investigators of this project are experts in engineering, computer science, gerontology, nursing, medicine and social health science. Working with older adults and family members in the design and testing of the AR technology, the team will compare AR to 2D interactive communication technologies, such as Zoom or Facetime. Initial understanding of the feasibility and acceptability of this enhanced AR technology among older adults, families and LTC staff will guide future studies targeting loneliness, ultimately improving quality of life for older adults. The community focus for this project will be older adults residing in LTC communities in Middle Tennessee with the potential to scaling the solution across the nation.The project will fundamentally advance the scientific and the technological methodologies of collaborative Augmented Reality to enhance social presence and thus social connectedness, to create realistic and socially appropriate interactions. It will make several fundamental contributions in both technology and social science during the course of this research: 1) create a novel multi-objective optimization based framework that minimizes positional errors of the hand of the avatar while preserving its nonverbal behavior with respect to the human it represents; such an ability will allow shared activities (e.g., drinking tea together) with appropriate social nonverbal behavior (e.g., gaze and postures), a critical component of communication; 2) create a new methodology of a user’s motions onto its avatar to generate naturalistic, socially appropriate motion that respects dissimilarities between the user’s and its avatar’s environments (e.g., differences in room geometries) through novel motion mapping and optimization that ensures natural walking patterns; 3) develop a greater understanding of the feasibility, acceptability and social presence in the use of varying collaborative AR activities and environments for older adults with different levels of cognitive impairment and their family members; 4) develop a greater understanding of the impact of collaborative AR on loneliness based on level of cognitive impairment; 5) gain a greater understanding of the logistics and deployment of this technology in LTCs and family homes to inform scalability; and 6) create activity design guidelines for reduction of loneliness in older adults. The research will be conducted through participatory design using key stakeholders (e.g., older adults, activity directors, LTC management) and evaluated using a two-arm experimental design comparing collaborative AR to current state-of-the-art 2D interactive communication technologies.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

该项目旨在通过新的增强现实（AR）技术来减少居住在长期护理（LTC）社区的老年人的孤独感。孤独感是一种严重的疾病，与心脏病，抑郁，自杀，精神和身体衰落以及生命质量和死亡降低有关。美国五分之二的老年人报告是孤独的。更令人震惊的是，四分之三的LTC老年人感到孤独。 COVID-19及其参与安全协议的大流行激发了LTC的孤独感。该项目将发现增强现实如何通过将LTC老年人与居住在其他地方的家庭成员联系起来来减少LTC老年人的孤独感。该项目将使老年人和家庭成员可以看到彼此的三维逼真的图像，一起吃饭，并在各种活动（例如扑克牌）中相互互动。该项目的研究人员是工程，计算机科学，老年医学，护士，医学和社会健康科学专家。与老年人和家庭成员在AR技术的设计和测试中合作，该团队将将AR与2D交互式通信技术（例如Zoom或FaceTime）进行比较。对这种增强的AR技术在老年人，家庭和LTC工作人员中的可行性和可接受性的最初了解将指导针对孤独感的未来研究，最终改善了老年人的生活质量。该项目的社区重点将是居住在田纳西州中部LTC社区中的老年人，有可能扩大整个国家的解决方案。该项目将从根本上推动与社交现实相关的科学和技术方法，从而增强社会存在和社会联系，从而建立现实和社交互动。在这项研究过程中，它将在技术和社会科学方面做出几项基本贡献：1）创建一种新型的基于多目标优化的框架，以最大程度地减少阿凡达的手的位置错误，同时保留其相对于它所代表的人类的非语言行为；这种能力将允许以适当的社会非语言行为（例如，目光和姿势）共享活动（例如一起喝茶），这是交流的关键组成部分； 2）在其化身上创建一种新方法，以产生自然主义，社交上适当的运动，以通过新颖的运动映射和优化来确保自然步行模式，从而尊重用户和其头像环境之间的差异（例如，房间几何形状的差异）； 3）在使用不同水平的认知障碍及其家人的老年人使用不同的协作AR活动和环境中，对使用不同的协作活动和环境的可行性，可接受性和社会存在有了更大的了解； 4）对基于认知障碍水平的协作性AR对孤独感的影响有了更大的了解； 5）对LTC和家庭住宅中该技术的物流和部署有更深入的了解，以告知可伸缩性； 6）创建活动设计指南，以减少老年人的孤独感。这项研究将通过参与设计使用关键利益相关者（例如老年人，活动总监，LTC管理）进行，并使用两臂实验设计进行评估，该设计将协作AR与当前最新的2D交互式通信技术进行了比较。该奖项反映了NSF的法定任务，并通过评估了基金会的智力，并通过评估了CRARITAIL和BRODITIAL的支持。