Dementia reduces a person’s ability to perform activities of daily living (ADL) because of related difficulties in remembering the proper sequence of events that must occur and how to use the required tools. The current solution is to have a caregiver continually provide verbal prompts. The COACH (Cognitive Orthosis for Assisting aCtivities in the Home) project, developed through the Intelligent Assistive Technology and Systems Lab (IATSL) at the University of Toronto, is a prototype of an intelligent, supportive environment being developed to help people with dementia complete ADLs with less dependence on a caregiver. This work represents one of first clinically tested supportive devices to use artificial intelligence techniques. It uses a personal (desktop) computer and a single video camera to unobtrusively track a user during an ADL. By sophisticated estimation of a user’s progress through a task using Bayesian filtering techniques, COACH provides pre-recorded (visual or video) cues to the user when necessary.
Jennifer Boger Research Manager, IATSL
Craig Boutilier Faculty
Geoff Fernie Vice President, Research, Toronto Rehabilitation Institute
Jesse Hoey Lecturer, University of Dundee and former Postdoctoral Fellow, Computer Science
Alex Mihailidis Faculty
Pascal Poupart Faculty, University of Waterloo and former Graduate Student, Computer Science
Axel von Bertoldi Systems Developer, IATSL
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