CareBand, Inc. SBIR Phase I Award, September 2021

Project Abstract Older adults residing in assisted living facilities (ALF) have been known to experience high levels of psychological problems (e.g., social isolation, loneliness, and depression) and cognitive functional decline. By participating in a variety of leisure activities (defined here as individual and social activities in which participants engage with freedom of choice and have a personally meaningful experience), ALF residents can reduce negative psychosocial problems and concerns, promote positive social interactions with others, and enhance overall health quality. During activities, ALF staff generally lead the activity, monitor resident engagement, and provide a report on whether the engagement reached a “meaningful” level or not. The problem is that defining “meaningful engagement” is highly subjective and must be evaluated against each resident’s individual goals— requiring an extensive amount of staff time. A higher quality, less time intensive, and more reliable method for monitoring, measuring and facilitating engagement is needed to ensure residents receive the greatest overall benefits from leisure and social activities. A growing body of evidence demonstrates that wearable sensors and technology can be utilized to detect an individual’s daily activity and behaviors. These studies lay the foundation for the establishment of the Appraise to Assist (A2A) system. The proposed A2A system will be developed by integrating two existing technologies—both designed specifically to meet the needs of older adults—CareBand (a wearable device developed by CareBand, Inc.) and RememberStuff (an interactive tablet-based platform developed by Eperture LLC). Led by CareBand, this SBIR proposes to develop A2A to passively monitor, empirically measure and unobtrusively facilitate engagement among residents to quantitatively and holistically measure leisure and social engagement. The overall objective is to engineer an A2A system that will quantify leisure engagement and social interactions of individuals residing in ALF that is statistically significant, feasible, usable and acceptable by residents, families, and staff. Phase I Aims are: 1) Conduct focus groups and interviews with residents, families, and facility staff of ALFs to gain deeper understanding of market requirements and use cases for the integrated technology; 2) Establish a secure integration between CareBand and RememberStuff to allow reciprocal data exchange and to create reports for staff, family, and residents; and 3) Conduct feasibility and usability study among 15 potential end users in an ALF. At the end of Phase I, CareBand and R/S will have implemented the technology in an ALF, received user feedback on the hardware and software capable of measuring leisure engagement, and assessed correlation of engagement data (collected by RememberStuff) with the quantitative movement data (collected by the CareBand). Phase II will focus on the construction of feedback algorithms to passively and automatically measure leisure engagement informed by findings of correlation, the creation of a predictive model around facilitating future engagement based on patterns and goals, and the assessment of clinical significance.Project Narrative Older adults living in assisted living facilities (ALF) have been found to experience high levels of psychological problems (e.g., social isolation, loneliness, and depression) and cognitive functional decline. Engagement in leisure and social activity is an important and therapeutic means to promote health and wellbeing of older adults in ALF, but there is no objective, quick and easy way to monitor and measure engagement. This SBIR will develop an objective, easy-to-use system that can passively and empirically monitor engagement, provide measures to care providers and facility staff, and facilitate leisure engagement amongst ALF residents.