PATRICIA: A Personal Affective Therapist for Rehabilitation of Individuals with Cognitive ImpAirments

The key innovation in this effort is the development of an interface and a framework for a Personal Affective Therapist for Rehabilitation of Individuals with Cognitive ImpAirments (PATRICIA). Intelligent Automation, Inc. (IAI) proposes to develop a portable (smart phone-based) device that utilizes basic sensing (accelerometers, heart rate, etc) to provide audio/visual feedback via a virtual therapist. While portable, the device will be designed so that it can be "docked" with a rehabilitation tool (e.g. IAIfs MACARM or the MOTEK CAREN) to provide feedback during a physical and cognitive therapy session. While it is docked, any additional sensing that is available via the rehabilitation tool can be utilized by the virtual therapist for feedback. Furthermore, the therapist can be presented on the screen of the rehabilitation tool (rather than the portable device) during the session. Progress will be monitored and recorded in a SCORM-conformant learning management system and used to adjust the rehabilitation paradigm and feedback from PATRICIA. The advantage of this approach is that the virtual therapist and affective computing interface are not only portable, allowing patients to use PATRICIA during everyday tasks, not just during therapy sessions.