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2023 | Book

ICT for Health, Accessibility and Wellbeing

Second International Conference, IHAW 2022, Larnaca, Cyprus, December 5–7, 2022, Revised Selected Papers

Editors: George Angelos Papadopoulos, Achilleas Achilleos, Edwige Pissaloux, Ramiro Velázquez

Publisher: Springer Nature Switzerland

Book Series : Communications in Computer and Information Science

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About this book

This book constitutes the refereed post-conference proceedings of the Second International Conference on ICT for Health, Accessibility and Wellbeing, IHAW 2022, held in Larnaca, Cyprus, in December 2022.

The revised 14 full papers and 3 short papers presented were carefully selected from 33 submissions. The papers are thematically arranged in the following sections: Visual Impairment and ICT for Mobility; ICT and Student Health; ICT and Wellbeing and ICT & Health prevention

Table of Contents

Frontmatter

Visual Impairment and ICT for Mobility

Frontmatter
Fall Detection Combining Android Accelerometer and Step Counting Virtual Sensors
Abstract
INTRODUCTION: Falls constitute a significant threat to older adults. Several approaches aimed at automatically detecting falls exist. Smartphones are widespread and can serve as a low-cost pervasive platform for automated fall detection. Existing fall detection apps are highly sensitive, but often suffers from sub-optimal specificity which can result in many false positives.
OBJECTIVES: The aim of this study was to investigate whether the built-in pedometer virtual sensor on the Android smartphone platform can be used to increase specificity and thereby achieve higher accuracy in an accelerometer-based Android fall detection application.
METHODS: An existing open threshold-based accelerometer algorithm was combined with the standard Android virtual sensor pedometer algorithm for detecting walking in the postfall phase. In a range of experiments, falls were simulated using a combination of a test mannequin and test participants, in order to determine the sensitivity and specificity of the solution.
RESULTS: All simulated falls were detected with 100% sensitivity. By counting postfall subsequent steps using the Android pedometer virtual sensor, the specificity of the application was increased to 100% in all scenarios.
CONCLUSION: The combination of accelerometer and pedometer sensors was found feasible to use for increasing the specificity of existing open fall detection algorithms.
Jeppe Tinghøj Honoré, Rune Dalsenni Rask, Stefan Rahr Wagner
A Bio-Inspired Model for Robust Navigation Assistive Devices: A Proof of Concept
Abstract
This paper proposes an implementation and evaluation in a real-world environment of a new bio-inspired predictive navigation model for mobility control, suitable especially for visually impaired people. This model relies on the interactions between formal models of three types of neurons identified in the mammals’ brain implied in navigation tasks (namely place cells, grid cells, and head direction cells) to construct a topological model of the environment under the form of a decentralized navigation graph. The proposed model, previously tested in virtual environments, demonstrated a high tolerance to motion drift and robustness to environment changes. This paper presents an implementation of this navigation model, based on a stereoscopic camera, and evaluates its possibilities to map and guide a person in an unknown real environment. The evaluation results confirm the effectiveness of the proposed bio-inspired navigation model to build a path map and guide a person through this path, while remaining robust to environment changes, and estimating traveled distances with an error rate below 2% over test paths, up to 100 m. These results open the way toward efficient wearable assistive devices for visually impaired people navigation.
Simon L. Gay, Edwige Pissaloux, Jean-Paul Jamont
Mind Your Step: A Diary Study of a Person with Visual Impairment Navigating a City with a Smart Cane
A Diary Study of a Person with Visual Impairment Navigating a City with a Smart Cane
Abstract
Several studies have documented the navigation requirements and preferences of people with visual impairments. The primary methods used in such studies were interviews and surveys. With the same goal, this study employed a diary-based approach. A person with visual impairment recorded daily navigation experiences with a smart cane for three months. These first-person diary entries were analyzed, and the findings are reported herein. The paper sheds some light on the challenges people with visual impairments face in navigating an urban city. The study shows some limitations with smart canes for urban navigation and suggests that more consideration should be given to the visually impaired for navigating in public environments.
Bineeth Kuriakose, Irina Cosescu, Raju Shrestha, Frode Eika Sandnes

ICT for Seniors Assistance

Frontmatter
Impact of Combined Music and Reminiscence Cognitive Stimulation in Dementia: A Longitudinal Pilot Study Using Musiquence
Abstract
Dementia is an uncurable neurodegenerative disease that leads to a gradual loss of cognitive capacities and negatively affects emotional state, quality of life, and ability to autonomously perform activities of daily living. Although pharmaceutical approaches can mitigate symptoms in people with dementia, their effect is still limited. Complementary approaches, such as music and reminiscence-related activities, have been proposed for stimulation purposes. Here we present the results of a pilot 14-session longitudinal study with an interactive platform called Musiquence, which allows the incorporation of music and reminiscence elements in cognitive stimulation activities, with 8 participants with dementia. In general, the results of the intervention show improvements in all the assessed domains: cognition, anxious and depressive symptomatology, functionality, and quality of life. Preliminary results appear to support the platform’s feasibility while providing positive outcomes of clinical efficacy.
Luis Ferreira, Mónica Spínola, Sofia Cavaco, Sergi Bermúdez I Badia
Perspectives on Technology Use in Dementia Care – An Exploratory Study of Nursing Homes in Luxembourg
Abstract
While technology is often considered a viable solution to many health related problems, its use in dementia care is still underrepresented. Although reasons for this lack of penetration may be rooted in the organisational stiffness of nursing homes, it is often the missing knowledge about daily working routines, which makes it difficult for technology providers to offer solutions that better fit the specific needs of care personnel and their patients. This article aims to shed some light on guiding principles in dementia care, the consequent challenges care workers face, and how they feel about the current and potential future use of technology to support their daily working routines. A three-stage Delphi study approach served as the methodological construct for our analysis, through which we aimed to find agreement among care workers in Luxembourg. Respective results point to six key characteristics as being central to work procedures in dementia care, i.e., (1) the application of nursing theories as the backbone for dementia care, (2) the adherence to guidelines, (3) the adaptation to patients’ individual capabilities, (4) the need for documentation and biographical work, (5) the need for effective communication, and (6) the need for flexibility. Where technology aligns with these key characteristics, it is perceived to be beneficial to the treatment of psychological as well as behavioural symptoms of dementia, to support the work in multidisciplinary teams and to help with documentation and communication.
Mark Monville, Stephan Schlögl, Rebecca Weichelt, Renate Windbichler
A Living-Lab Methodology for the Testing of an Immersive Capsule in Elder Care Home
Abstract
The living-lab of the Hospital of Valenciennes is experimenting innovation for seniors in real life settings. The process includes the users in every step of the project for a better participation, motivation but also for more efficient results. This current study experiments the use of an immersive capsule from the VirtySens Company which stimulates 4 senses.
The project took place in an elder home of the hospital of Valenciennes. There were 16 caregivers aged range 20-35y old and 37 seniors of 77.82 years old average (min: 55y max: 96y SD: 10.37y) included in the study.
The participants were invited to fill up a form before and after each experience to report a score about the state of mind and the satisfaction about their experience. They were free to add as many comments as they wanted.
The state of mind was significantly improved after the VR experience (5,76/7, SD 1,41) compare to before (4,16/7, SD:0,93). The satisfaction was high for the seniors (5,86/7, SD: 1,62) and for the caregivers (6,4/7, SD: 0,97).
The living-lab project allow implementing VR in a seniors care home with the full collaboration of the caregivers and the motivation of the seniors. The immersive capsule seems to be promising to stimulate the cognition and the memory of seniors.
Jennifer Bassement, Sophie Brooks, Christine Selvez, Cyprienne Machu, Fanny Blondiau, Sebastien Leteneur

ICT and Student Health

Frontmatter
Facilitated Collaborative Group Design of Hypothetical Digital Tools to Understand University Students’ Support Needs and Requirements
Abstract
The number of students in higher education encountering issues with their well-being is increasing every year, and many struggle to seek appropriate support. Digital tools may be best placed to address their needs; however, it is important to include the student voice throughout the design process as students are arguably experts of their own experiences and how they want their needs to be met. The aim of the present research was to involve and amplify the student voice in understanding the domains in which they want support, their views on existing digital supports, and their desired features in a digital support. Undergraduate students enrolled in a well-being module at UCD completed a facilitated group assignment in which they were required to propose a concept for a hypothetical digital tool to support other students in a domain of their choice. Deductive thematic analysis of the 10-min presentation of their tool was carried out to answer a series of questions around what domains students most need support in and why, what their attitudes towards existing tools are, what needs they have relating specifically to the university student lifestyle, and what specific features they desire from a tool and why. Recommendations for what an ideal student support tool could look like and specific features it could have are made based on students’ own identified needs and suggestions.
Gráinne Bannigan, Ciara Duignan, Denise McGrath
Improving Student Mental Health Through Health Objectives in a Mobile App
Abstract
This research sets out to validate a mobile app intervention that aimed to improve the participant’s mental health by asking them to engage in small daily challenges. The challenges encouraged the participant to create a better sleep, diet, and exercise routine, which in turn create better mental health. The challenges were gamified with points, badges, and leaderboards. The participants were split into two groups with the gamification features only shown to half of the participants to help measure the effect of gamification on the engagement. The study gathered 73 participants, of which 67 completed at least one challenge, 30 participated in multiple mental health surveys allowing us to calculate a change in mental health over time, and 8 completed the entire 8-week trial. Throughout the trial participants were asked to fill out a 4-item questionnaire to evaluate their mental health, while analytics were gathered about their engagement with the app as measured by the number of days they opened the app and number of points they collected. Correlation analyses were performed to measure the relationship between engagement and mental health and split by group. We observed a negative correlation between points gained and mental health score, as well as a difference in means between the control and experiment groups suggesting that engagement could be influenced by gamification and has a positive effect on mental health.
Mikhail Vinogradov, Maiga Chang, Fuhua Lin, Yang Yan
Experience of Students in Using Online Mental Health Interventions: A Qualitative Study
Abstract
Online mental health interventions have been posited as a way to reduce the mental health treatment gap among students in higher education. The effectiveness of these interventions is often limited by low user adherence. A potential solution is to improve user adherence by producing user-centred interventions.
A total of 452 students from University College Cork, Ireland participated in the survey, “Tell us About Your Mental Health Post-COVID-19”. The survey examined students’ mental health over the past year, their use of technological supports, their use of mental health support services and their ratings of mental health support services used.
This study explores students’ experiences with technological support. The thematic analysis of 138 open-ended responses produced seven main themes: 1) Appeal 2) Barriers to Use 3) Discovery 4) Drawbacks 5) Purpose 6) Reasons for Stopping and 7) Usage Patterns. The results of this study revealed students’ openness to using online mental health resources. It also revealed the barriers and facilitators to their use of these resources. Finally, based on our findings, we provide recommendations to researchers/designers developing online mental health interventions for university students. Some of these recommendations were to ensure safety in online communities, provide good user interfaces, support students in crises and improve the accessibility of online resources to students with learning disabilities.
Olugbenga Oti, Claudette Pretorius, Ian Pitt

ICT and Wellbeing

Frontmatter
A Pilot Study to Evaluate the Feasibility of a Science-Based Game Called Symphony to Alleviate Depression Symptoms
Abstract
Clinical depression reportedly affected about 3.8% of the population worldwide in 2021. First-line treatments, such as medication and psychotherapy, can be ineffective for several reasons; hence, computerized solutions have been proposed as complementary aid tools. This paper presents Symphony, a mobile casual game designed to aid individuals with mild to moderate-severe depression symptoms. It exploits puzzle-solving, music-listening, and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy to provide psychoeducation for improving mental well-being and mood, and promoting cognitive stimulation. An iterative design approach was used, and was tested by a sample of university students receiving psychological support (N = 8), who completed pre-and post-intervention questionnaires to assess the impact of playing Symphony on their depressive symptomatology, mood, and also to gather their perception of the game. Additionally, therapists’ informal comments and observations were also collected. Results revealed that playing Symphony generated mostly positive affective responses and mood changes. Our study supports the feasibility of using Symphony as an adjunctive treatment strategy to induce positive changes in participants. However, further research is needed to validate Symphony’s effectiveness and make it customizable to each individual.
Diana C. Gonçalves Mendes, Yuri Aristides da Silva Godinho de Almeida, Carla Vale Lucas, Luísa Soares, Sergi Bermúdez i Badia
An Innovative Recommendation System for a Knowledge Transfer Matchmaking Platform
Abstract
The phenomenon of aging, which has become more prevalent in our society in recent decades, has raised a number of concerns about the well-being of the elderly. Studies show that a significant percentage of retired seniors suffer from depression as a result of inactivity and a poor social environment. In order to provide seniors an opportunity to reintegrate into a healthy work environment, a knowledge transfer platform was created, with the goal of allowing seniors to share their knowledge with organizations that required the experience of a specialist. The paper presents a hybrid system that can recommend mentors for a certain assignment to companies, based on their abilities. Using AI agents, a combination of a matchmaking system and a collaborative filter calculates the similarity between the corporate profile and candidate profiles. The functionality of the system has been tested on different scenarios.
Gabriela Rus, Laurentiu Nae, Bogdan Gherman, Calin Vaida, Michel Deriaz, Eduard Oprea, Doina Pisla
Personalized Sports Nutrition Intervention Using Genetic Testing and Wearable Devices
Abstract
Individuals’ characteristics are different, therefore we need personalized sports nutrition programs. Modern sports nutrition programs should analyze multi-dimensional data such as genetic information, clinical manifestations (e.g., gender, age, health status, family history, diet preference, food tolerance and allergens), biometric data, and sports ability to improve health and sports performance. Revealing the genetic and biological mechanism of human sports ability at the molecular level has made some remarkable achievements in the fields of sports nutrition supplementation, sports injury prevention, sports performance improvement, etc. Wearable devices such as smart watches are broadly used to monitor the biometric data of users. In this paper, we first introduce the development of wearable devices, and describe the genetic factors affecting sports and nutrition, then we summarize the physiological indicators could be collected by wearable devices and discuss the indicators suitable for application in the field of personalized nutrition. Further, we demonstrate our sports genetic testing service. Combing genetic testing data, wearable device data, and lifestyle data, finally, we give our personalized sports and nutrition solution, which can improve individual’s sports effect and health effectively.
Jitao Yang

ICT and Health prevention

Frontmatter
A Time Study for the Analysis of the Potential for the Automated Stepwise Screening Program for Preeclampsia at Week 12 of Gestation
Abstract
Preeclampsia (PE) is a hypertensive disorder of pregnancy, occurring in 2–8% of all pregnancies. PE can cause life-threatening conditions and result in adverse events for both mother and baby. The only treatment of the condition is delivery of the baby, which often leads to preterm delivery. It is shown that prophylactic treatment with aspirin from early pregnancy can prevent or delay severe preeclampsia in women with high risk of PE. Screening by a combination of maternal risk factors and biomarkers has been shown to identify up to 90% of women at risk of developing early-onset PE. The aim of this study was to investigate the time spent for each step in the screening program in the first-trimester screening program in week 12 as input for an analysis of the potential for the automated stepwise screening program. The time used for obtaining maternal risk factors (MF), mean arterial blood pressure (MAP), and uterine arterial pulsatility index (UtA-PI) was measured through observations and using dedicated timekeeper tablet apps. The study found that the mean duration for measuring the UtA-PI was 2.7 min ranging from 1.3–8.5 min, based on 39 participants. In addition, there was no significant time difference (p = 0.4, effect size = 0.2) in answering the questions on MF by using a self-reported digital questionnaire compared to being interviewed by a healthcare professional, based on 18 and 14 participants, in each group. There was significant difference in the time spent for placement of the blood pressure (BP) cuffs when done by a healthcare professional compared to the participants doing it themselves, (p < 0.001, effect size = 0.8), based on 32 participants, where participants would be slower than the healthcare professional. In conclusion, we found that if a screening programme for PE is introduced, the duration for the first trimester ultrasound scan should be extended by 5 min to include the UtA-PI measurement. Also, guidance is needed to assist the woman or her partner to choose and place the BP cuffs correctly, otherwise it could require extra staff resources. Finally, the participants are likely to be able to self-report MF using a tablet user interface.
Louise Pedersen, Stefan Wagner, Henriette Skov, Puk Sandager
Is Human Mobility an Appropriate Indicator for COVID-19 Dynamics? An Italian Experience
Abstract
COVID-19 is one of the many infectious diseases which rely on human interactions for its spread and infectivity. In an environment where human mobility is constantly subjected to change, measuring the impact of this on infectivity would be a major challenge. Among many indicators of transmission, mobility has emerged as an important factor contributing to the surge in COVID-19 cases and deaths. Here, we study the coupling between the COVID -19 impact and mobility trends caused by government NPIs (Non-Pharmaceutical Interventions) such as lockdown and social distancing. The study includes mobility reports from Google (about varied dimensions of local mobility), daily number of COVID-19 cases and deaths and information on NPIs in 9 Italian regions for over 2 years from 2020. The intent is to find possible associations between the COVID-19 impact and human mobility. The methodology is inspired by a study of Wang et al. in 2020. Our findings suggest that the trend in local mobility can help in forecasting the dynamics of COVID-19. These findings can support the policymakers in formulating the best data-driven approaches for tackling confinement issues and in structuring future scenarios in case of new outbreaks.
Divya Pragna Mulla, Mario Alessandro Bochicchio, Antonella Longo
Backmatter
Metadata
Title
ICT for Health, Accessibility and Wellbeing
Editors
George Angelos Papadopoulos
Achilleas Achilleos
Edwige Pissaloux
Ramiro Velázquez
Copyright Year
2023
Electronic ISBN
978-3-031-29548-5
Print ISBN
978-3-031-29547-8
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-29548-5

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