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Technology Boosts People with Dementia’s Psychosocial Well-being

Yuan Feng gained her PhD Cum Laude at the department of Industrial Design on July 7th 2022. See the original article on TU/e website by Nicole van Overveld (Communication Advisor)

The PhD-research of Yuan Feng focuses on promoting the well-being of a vulnerable population in our society – people with dementia – using interactive technologies. Collaborating with the Vitalis Berckelhof, a Dutch residential care for elderly with and without dementia located in Eindhoven, Feng gave clients living there a way to relive the pasts and get closer to outdoor nature through simulated sensory experiences with rich interaction possibilities.

Y. Feng, Rich Interaction for People with Dementia: Designing Interactive Systems with Rich Interaction for Enhancing Engagement of People with Dementia Living in Long-term Care Facilities, PhD Thesis, Department of Industrial Design, Eindhoven University of Technology, Eindhoven, 2022. FULLTEXT: PDF REFERENCE: BibTeX EndNote

Continue reading Technology Boosts People with Dementia’s Psychosocial Well-being
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Enhancing Social Interaction among Nursing Homes Residents with Interactive Public Display Systems

ai Kang, Bart Hengeveld, Caroline Hummels, Jun Hu

Positive peer interaction in nursing homes has been consistently recognized as essential to residents’ life quality. However, low rates of resident-to-resident interaction were found to be pervasive. Our research explores the potential of applying public display systems to promote residents’ unplanned co-located interaction. This article describes the design and assessment of “Reading-to-Sharing” (R2S): a tabletop display system intended to improve nursing home residents’ social interaction by enhancing their public reading experience. R2S was assessed via supervised field trials, in which the participants were invited to experience R2S in real-life settings with necessary assistance. The objectives were mainly to investigate the participants’ engagement with R2S, user experience and the potential impact on residents’ social behaviors and feelings. The result showed that R2S was capable of engaging the participants in content viewing and sharing. It was effective in catalyzing and facilitating their social interaction. The participants’ perceived user experience was primarily favorable. Although R2S was anticipated to increase the participants’ mutual closeness, no statistically significant change was seen. The key implications were highlighted to guide the design of public display systems in this context.

K. Kang, B. Hengeveld, C. Hummels, and J. Hu, “Enhancing Social Interaction among Nursing Homes Residents with Interactive Public Display Systems,” International Journal of Human–Computer Interaction, pp. 1-17, 2022.
FULLTEXT: PDF REFERENCE: BibTeX EndNote
DOI: 10.1080/10447318.2021.2016234

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Design for Story Sharing: Connect Seniors with their Children

PhD Thesis by Cun Li

The world is graying. The worldwide population over age 65 is expected to more than double from 357 million in 1990 to 761 million in 2025. Within the context of the ageing society, social isolation is widespread among older adults. Among all their social relationships, the older adults rank connections with family members second only to health, as the most important area of their lives. Given that one of the most precious characteristics of older adults is their memory of events, people, and places, storytelling could act as an effective way to keep them stay in touch with their children. However, while younger seniors are embracing online social technologies, their parents, many of whom are still living, are neglected in this trend; these non-tech-savvy elders are targeted in this research. Based on the situation described above, the research presented in this thesis attempts to answer the research question: How can interactive technology facilitate intergenerational storytelling, specifically for non-tech-savvy older adults?

C. Li, Design for Story Sharing: Connect Seniors with their Children, PhD Thesis, Department of Industrial Design, Eindhoven University of Technology, Eindhoven, 2021. FULLTEXT: PDF REFERENCE: BibTeX EndNote

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Effects of the Level of Interactivity of a Social Robot and the Response of the Augmented Reality Display in Contextual Interactions of People with Dementia

The well-being of people with dementia (PWD) living in long-term care facilities is hindered due to disengagement and social isolation. Animal-like social robots are increasingly used in dementia care as they can provide companionship and engage PWD in meaningful activities. While most previous human–robot interaction (HRI) research studied engagement independent from the context, recent findings indicate that the context of HRI sessions has an impact on user engagement. This study aims to explore the effects of contextual interactions between PWD and a social robot embedded in the augmented responsive environment. Three experimental conditions were compared: reactive context-enhanced robot interaction; dynamic context-enhanced interaction with a static robot; a control condition with only the dynamic context presented. Effectiveness evaluations were performed with 16 participants using four observational rating scales on observed engagement, affective states, and apathy related behaviors. Findings suggested that the higher level of interactivity of a social robot and the interactive contextualized feedback helped capture and maintain users’ attention during engagement; however, it did not significantly improve their positive affective states. Additionally, the presence of either a static or a proactive robot reduced apathy-related behaviors by facilitating purposeful activities, thus, motivating behavioral engagement.

Y. Feng, E. I. Barakova, S. Yu, J. Hu, and G. Rauterberg, “Effects of the Level of Interactivity of a Social Robot and the Response of the Augmented Reality Display in Contextual Interactions of People with Dementia,” Sensors, vol. 20, no. 13, pp. 3771, 2020. FULLTEXT: PDF REFERENCE: BibTeX EndNote DOI: 10.3390/s20133771

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WIDC & IDWE 2019, Yantai

TU/e DESIS Lab was involved in WIDC & IDWE 2019, supported by Design Promotion.

Design Promotion participated in organizing WIDC & IDWE, by bringing the guests and designs to the World Industrial Design Conference 2019 and International Design World Expo 2019, on Oct 17-20, in Yantai China.

Design promotion organized an exhibition at IDWE, showing the designs and products from SophistiAmbiantiDesign2getherFemooiEindhoven International HealthLab/Bobo tech, and TU Eindhoven.

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IoT in the City: Data Awareness at Stratumseind

Excellent B2 project work by Noa van den Brink, Teun van Acker and Renate Voss

The municipality of Eindhoven is always working on innovation and are working with new IoT technologies and sensors in public spaces, based on gathering and analyzing people’s data to improve the quality of life in the city.

At Stratumseind, there is such a sensor network which gathers data to solve issues in daily lives like safety. As local government, Eindhoven has to ensure that use of technology and data in the public space is visible, transparent, open, secure and respects the privacy of individuals and communities, which means that it is anonymous at all time. It is known that in Eindhoven a number of IoT / sensor networks in the public space work independently and are used by different parties and stakeholders. However, not everyone is aware of this sensor network and it has become clear that visualization and interaction with IoT in public spaces is a challenge. Especially, now privacy has become on of the main hot topics in the rapid digitizing world, think about The General Data Protection Regulation which is introduced in the EU in May 2018, (local) governments are looking for ways to implement new technologies in a transparent and democratic way. Therefore, as a leading municipality, Eindhoven wants to make it known and clear to everyone where the measuring equipment is located, what is measured and by whom, to ensure the public interest and stimulate innovation with the use of new technologies. …

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Engagement Between Social Innovators And Universities

For the last two and a half years, the Strategy for Change  (http://strategy4change.eu/institutional/) project has been developing methodologies for embedding social innovation into student leadership programmes, combining entrepreneurial skills, design thinking and an awareness of how to effect social change in order to prepare the innovators of tomorrow. This event not only aims to showcase the results of the project, hearing the experience of both students and practioners – it also seeks to bring together a range of actors – social innovators, academics, students and enablers – to discuss how universities can support social innovation within their communities Continue reading Engagement Between Social Innovators And Universities

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Closer to Nature: Interactive Systems for Seniors with Dementia in Long-term Care

MSc. Y. (Yuan) Feng

dr. PDEng. MEng. Jun Hu, dr. Ir. Emilia Barakova, prof. dr. Matthias Rauterberg

People with dementia living in Long-term Care (LTC) are gradually experiencing diminished functional abilities caused by this brain disease. The declined cognitive functioning, decreased mobility, loss of memory and inner motivation provides inevitable challenges in engaging this group in activities. Lack of engagement are associated with disruptive behavioral and psychological symptoms of dementia (BPSD) such as agitation, wondering, apathy, passivity and depression. With no known cure in sight, developing and evaluating meaningful activities that foster and sustain engagement is critical for promoting quality of life for seniors with dementia in LTC.

[slideshare id=102310330&doc=desisctn2018-180613153415]
Continue reading Closer to Nature: Interactive Systems for Seniors with Dementia in Long-term Care

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SmartHealth Lab: Internship/FBP/FMP opportunities

Internship/FBP/FMP opportunities: We are cooperating with a company inHangzhou, working on smart healthcare solutions for patient care in hospitals. One of the proposals is smart wearables for body temperature monitoring. We are also seeking for students who are interested in applications of fetus heart rate measures for pregnancy care. Part of the project or the whole project will be carried out in China. Travel and accommodation costs will be covered, with possible allowances. This project does require certain technical skills. If interested, contact j.hu@tue.nl.