Pervasive cognitive assistants for smart homes/l'assistance cognitive dans les habitats intelligents

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

Governments aim at keeping at home and in their community people suffering from cognitive impairments (Alzheimer's disease, trauma, schizophrenia...).  In many cases, people would be able to stay at home if light assistance is provided. But resources are scarce. Thus most of the time, relatives take responsibility for care without access to appropriate resources. Too often, this situation then turns to an exhausting burden. Therefore informal and professional caregivers urge for help. Smart homes in particular and health telematics in general can foster independent living and enhanced life style for elderly and disabled people. This proposal addresses deficits of attention, initiation, memory and planning. An attention deficit occurs when a person has difficulties to focus on his current activity that may then be forgotten and never completed. An initiation deficit leads to inactive periods whereas the person is supposed to perform actions. Memory deficits could lead to difficulties to remember the activity he has to perform, the steps of the activity, the locations of the objects, and even which objects are involved in the activity. Finally a planning deficit leads to difficulties to perform a sequence of actions in the right order to achieve a goal. In the long run, this research proposal aims to - contribute to the theory and praxis of pervasive/ubiquitous computing and tangible user interfaces compulsory to create smart homes and smart environments, - foster the autonomy of cognitively impaired people thanks to cognitive assistance to activities of daily living, - investigate how pervasive services and tangible user interfaces can support tele-monitoring, tele-assistance, and communication between cognitively impaired people and their caregivers.