The AAAI 2002 workshop on
Automation as Caregiver:
The Role of Intelligent Technology in Elder Care

Workshop Topic and Issues

As the cognitive and physical health of elders begins to deteriorate, they require increasing assistance from caregivers. The strain on families and individuals is enormous--informal caregivers use prescription drugs for depression, anxiety, and insomnia at a rate of two to three times that of the average population [Gallagher et al, 1989].

In many cases, governments, social service organizations and even individuals and families are turning to technological solutions to aid in care giving for this elderly population. While much of this technology continues to occupy traditional assistive roles such as aiding in walking, door opening, and communication, increasingly advanced technological solutions are being proposed to aid in monitoring, diagnosis, situation awareness, decision aiding and the direct automation of tasks for either the elderly themselves or for their caregivers. From the human-factors perspective, failure to consider the humans' needs, desires, capabilities and limitations will lead to unsatisfactory technological solutions at best, and disasters at worst.

By bringing together researchers from robotics, artificial intelligence and human factors, this workshop will help foster a coordinated solution for automation as caregiver for the elderly. We are interested in submissions covering both integrated solutions as well as particular components.

We specifically invite researchers from the following areas:

• Assistive technology: devices that aid with mobility, medication management, and household tasks such as eating and grooming.
• Cognitive Aids: technology that supports declining cognitive skills, including reminders, task instruction, and methods to reduce cognitive effort such as shopping and accessing transportation schedules.
• Passive Monitoring: devices and reasoning systems that recognize the elder's activity and learn to detect abnormal situations.
• Decision-making: reasoning systems that respond to situations and the elder's needs by interacting with devices in the home, interacting with the elder, or contacting caregivers.
• Human factors: interfaces that meet elder's needs and capabilities - motor, sensory and cognitive.
• Adaptation: techniques to recognize the elder's changing capabilities.

Proceedings

Workshop Format

This was one-day workshop with

• Paper presentations from each paper
• An invited talk from Bill Mann and Sumi Helal from the International Center for Technology for Successful Aging at the University of Florida. They will present the population, needs and issues, and then discuss technologies upon which we can build applications to address those needs.
• Two panel sessions, topics:
  • Technical needs and opportunities. Panel organized by Holly Yanco, who asked panelists to name "the most important need for researchers to address"
    • Christine Lisetti: emotion: issues of loneliness, depression, motivating elders, etc.
    • Henry Kautz: caregiver burnout
    • Joelle Pineau: caregiver burnout, and the sensory & cognitive decline over time
    • Bill Mann: medical issues that kill or dramatically affect quality of like, like arthritis and circulatory system
  • Issues and Ethics. Panel organized by Chris Miller, who asked panelists to generate a provocative statement whether or not they agree with it.
    • Chris Geib: All data generated by these monitoring systems should be YOURS to give out as you please to doctors or monitoring agencies, and they should be required to sign non-disclosure agreements.
    • Cynthia Marling: Every decision made by the system should have a human-in-the-loop who is responsible (liable) for the system's behavior.
    • Martha Pollack: System design must have professional ethicists and the target community involved so that issues of not only safety and privacy are addressed, but also dignity.
    • Chris Miller: For at least the next 5 years or so, there should be a certification board (not unlike the FAA) who regulates system capabilities.

References

AOA, 1998.

Administration on Aging, Profile of Older Americans: 1998, http://www.aoa.gov.

Gallagher, 1989.

Gallagher, D., Rose, J., Rivera, P., Lovett, S., and Thompson, L.W. (1989). Prevalence of Depression in Family Caregivers, The Gerontologist, 29(4):449-456.

Contact Information