Jennifer Boger
IBBME
University of Toronto
email: jen.boger@utoronto.ca
Pascal Poupart
Department of Computer Science
University of Waterloo
email: ppoupart@cs.uwaterloo.ca
Jesse Hoey
Department of Computer Science
University of Toronto
Toronto, ON M5S 3H5
email: jhoey@cs.toronto.edu
Craig Boutilier
Department of Computer Science
University of Toronto
Toronto, ON M5S 3H5
email: cebly@cs.toronto.edu
Geoff Fernie
Toronto Rehabilitation Institute
email: Fernie.Geoff@torontorehab.on.ca
Alex Mihailidis
Department of Occupational Therapy
University of Toronto
Toronto, ON
email: alex.mihailidis@utoronto.ca
Abstract
Older adults with dementia often cannot remember
how to complete activities of daily living and require a caregiver
to aid them through the steps involved. The use of a computerized
guidance system could potentially reduce the reliance on a
caregiver. This paper examines the design and preliminary
evaluation of a planning system that uses Markov decision
processes (MDPs) to determine when and how to provide prompts
to a user with dementia for guidance through the activity of
handwashing. Results from the study suggest that MDPs can be
applied effectively to this type of guidance problem.
Considerations for the development of future guidance systems
are presented.
To appear, IEEE Transactions on Information Technology in Biomedicine
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