Increasing Independence after Brain Injury with Autonomous Sensing, Planning, and Cueing

Our objective is to demonstrate the feasibility and merit of a cognitive aid that monitors the user"s situation to provide cues based on state conditions instead of pre-scheduled cues which are based only on time. We extend a commercially available cognitive aid to use condition-based cues which are responsive to the user"s changing situation. Context-aware cognitive aids which adjust to the user"s situation in real-time may increase therapy effectiveness and user acceptance. During Phase I we developed a prototype of the first cognitive aid that "closes-the-loop" with integrated sensing, activity recognition, planning, and cueing. The user"s location is tracked using GPS and pressure mats and RFID tags are used to detect objects that the user touches. We demonstrated the ability to inhibit pre-scheduled cues which would be out of sync with the user"s situation and to generate contingent cues which are triggered by monitored state conditions rather than being pre-scheduled. We demonstrated these benefits to our medical advisory board which includes VA neuropsychologists. Phase II will focus on extending our prototype and evaluating the system with seven brain injury survivors including case studies with OIF/OEF veterans. We will focus on requirements for scaling beyond our prototype to a commercial product.