Prototyping and Preliminary Evaluation of Mind Monitoring Service for Elderly People at Home

Abstract

In order to support sustainable in-home long-term care, it is essential to monitor mental states of elderly people at home, as well as to encourage their ability of self-care. However, the technical challenges include the limitations on human interventions and sensor-based monitoring, as well as daily recording and externalization of mental states. In this research, we propose Mind Monitoring Service, which aims to monitor mental states and promote self-care of elderly people at home. In the proposed service, an agent asks a user specific questions to acquire his/her mental state. Based on the answers, the service then assesses the mental state and sends feedback. We implement a prototype service, and evaluate the feasibility of the service through a preliminary experiment. The results show that data characterizing mental states of individual subjects was obtained successfully, and that some subjects externalized their minds by feedback from the service.