Studies in Health Technology and Informatics最新文献

Increasingly, health and social care providers are adopting technology-mediated processes to optimise the delivery of care and to influence policy- and decision-makers. However, fragmentation persists in and between health and social care, impeding the provision of rounded person-centred care. Health and care delivery for an ageing population involves many diverse stakeholders with a range of motivations and agendas. The creation of a functional and sustainable network may promote the achievement of a well-functioning and integrated health and care sector. This work-in-progress paper outlines the evolution of an optimal governance model for the SHAPES network.

There is a practical demand to maximise existing data to understand and meet the assistive technology (AT) needs in dynamic populations. Harmonisation can generate new insight by integrating multiple datasets that were not previously comparable into a single longitudinal dataset. We harmonised AT assessment data from three population-based surveys collected several years apart in Nepal: the Living Conditions of Persons with Disabilities (2014-2015), the Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey (2019), and the rapid Assistive Technology Assessment (2022). The harmonised dataset demonstrates a method that can be used for unifying AT surveys in other settings and conducting trend analyses that are necessary for monitoring a population's dynamic AT needs. We set out to explore AT data's potential for harmonisation, and learned there is indeed value in this approach for situating disparate datasets, though the methodology proposed will need further validation.

Active and Assisted Living (AAL) technologies offer solutions for addressing healthcare challenges associated with ageing societies and a shortage of care personnel. At the same time, these technologies raise significant privacy issues, which may constitute a barrier to the sustainable adoption and acceptance of AAL. In particular, concerns arise from the presence of cameras in intimate situations, including nudity, and the potential production and dissemination of intimate pictures, which constitutes a risk for AAL users. The paper compares the regimes of criminal liability for making and disseminating intimate pictures under EU, Irish, and Polish law. The study aims to help AAL users understand their legal protection, and give providers and developers more insight into their legal responsibilities. The paper first presents different understandings of an intimate picture in each jurisdiction, followed by a discussion of what the crime entails and who may be liable for it. The conclusion includes a checklist of rules concerning criminal liability, which may be useful for AAL users and providers, and conclusions de lege ferenda.

Advances in smartphone technology have made it possible to develop mobile apps that assist people with cognitive or learning disabilities in navigating indoor spaces more easily and independently. This paper reviews the state of the art in smartphone-based indoor navigation for this population and describes a usability trial that was conducted with four individuals in a German city hall. The trial was based on simulated tasks that required the use of the indoor navigation app XXX, during which data about different use cases were gathered. A guided interview was conducted to gather further feedback about the accessibility and the perceived usefulness of the app. The paper highlights the potential of smartphone-based indoor navigation apps for enhancing the independence and quality of life of individuals with cognitive or learning disabilities. The usability trial provided insights into the effectiveness and usability of these apps in real-world settings.

We investigated a speech training support system targeting students in special needs education classes who are engaged in training to acquire a binary relationship where their vocalizations elicit reactions from others. Previously, there was a challenge in maintaining interest and achieving learning effectiveness when teachers intervened to encourage vocalizations using teaching aids such as picture books. To address this, we designed and integrated an electronic circuit with a movable toy that captures the interest of the supported students. The circuit includes a switch that turns on and activates a secondary circuit only when vocalizations are detected. In this paper, we report on the training using the developed speech support system and validate its functionality.

We developed a gesture interface (AAGI) for individuals with motor dysfunction who cannot use standard interface switches. These users have cerebral palsy, quadriplegia, or traumatic brain injury and experience involuntary movement, spasticity, and so on. In this paper, we describe a disabled user who utilizes a mouth stick for laptop PC input in daily life. Our objective is to lower the burden on his body by using gestures. To this end, we developed a "home position" for the head that enables gestures to coexist with the mouse stick usage. The results of basic experiments with five healthy participants indicate that our system has reached the level where it can be applied to actual disabled persons. Finally, we applied the system to a user with cerebral palsy asked him to perform web browsing.

Long-term remote patients monitoring implies minimal discomfort and reliability throughout the study period. These requirements are fulfilled by portable (wearable) patient devices, with low consumption, which transmit data wirelessly, at a short distance, to a mobile communication device (GSM) and through it, to a remote end recipient - doctor, medical center or a hospital server. The data transfer technology requires the monitored person to perform a sequence of actions, such as: selecting the appropriate application on the mobile phone, establishing a connection between the patient module and the phone, recording the data in the phone's memory, starting the data transfer from the phone to the final receiver. Practice shows that often this sequence of activities is difficult for elderly people and especially for visually impaired people, which as a result compromises the remote monitoring process. In this paper are presented an approach and conceptual implementation of a system for remote monitoring of cardiac activity, using the most popular way of remote connectivity - voice (sound) communication. In addition to the ease of use, this type of communication does not require special data protection, due to the lack of RF interfaces for short-distance data transmission. The presented results of laboratory studies, as well as conducted tests under medical supervision of patients in a cardiology clinic, confirm the workability of the proposed approach for remote monitoring of patients by audio conversion of the ECG signal.

This article reports on work undertaken by AAATE researchers in the framework of the EU-funded TRIPS Project. The project (2021-2023) has aimed to contribute to transforming public transport in Europe and beyond toward more inclusive models, leaving no one behind. The reported findings refer to a specific aspect of the transformation process that has been investigated by the authors, namely the factors that impact the transfer of innovation in accessibility by the public transport providers. A framework model was created due to a process of factor extraction from existing literature and their validation by a sample of decision-makers in the public transport sector.

Tangible User Interfaces (hereafter, TUIs) are novel forms of human-computer interactions based on the physical manipulation of any kind of object/artifact. A great potential of TUIs technologies is the possibility to personalize objects and interaction between the user and the system. The high level of platform flexibility allows, for example, a multisensory approach, that is crucial for children that have sensory limitations and disabilities. This contribution aims at presenting and discussing the development of an authoring tool for creating TUI-supported activities for inclusive digital storytelling. The authoring tool is a product of collaboration and consultation with researchers and teachers involved in the ERASMUS+ project I'M IN TALES. A preliminary usability validation study using a mixed-method approach has been conducted involving 50 educators and assistive technology professionals. The results indicate an overall acceptance of the system. The feedback provided by the participants involved will be used for the future refinement of the tool.

Given the challenges of wayfinding in large indoor built environments, especially for persons with disabilities (PWDs), a new class of accessible technologies called built environment accessible technologies (BEAT) are being developed. Such technologies are envisioned to help achieve product and opportunity parity for PWDs. The impact and adoption of these BEATs depends largely on clear and quantifiable (tangible and intangible) economic benefits accrued to the end-users and stakeholders. This paper describes the results of a survey conducted to measure potential benefits in terms of quality of life and quality of work life (work productivity) by increased accessibility provisions within built environments as it relates to navigation for PWDs and those without disabilities. Results of this work indicate that BEATs have the greatest potential to improve mobility and exploratory activities for people with disabilities, exploratory activities for people without disabilities, and improve job security for everyone.