Jake Terranova Stefan Howansky Dr. Jean F. Coppola Seidenberg School of CSIS Pace University

INTRODUCTION Study focused on creation of mobile applications for elderly PURPOSE: Increase quality of life of patients suffering from cognitive disabilities

Researchers at the University of Toronto’s Quality of Life Research Unit define quality of life as: “The degree to which a person enjoys the important possibilities of his or her life” "Quality of Life: How Good is Life for You?""Quality of Life: How Good is Life for You?". University of Toronto Quality of Life Research Unit. Retrieved October 14, QUALITY OF LIFE

An umbrella term for a set of symptoms including: Memory Loss Difficulty with communication and language Inability to focus Impaired reasoning and judgment Poor visual perception "What Is Dementia?" Dementia – Signs, Symptoms, Causes, Tests, Treatment, Care. DEMENTIA

A very specific form of Dementia Symptoms include: Impaired thought Impaired Speech Confusion Loss of motivation Mood swings that often involve depression "What Is Dementia?" Dementia – Signs, Symptoms, Causes, Tests, Treatment, Care. ALZHEIMER'S DISEASE

Many elderly suffer from disease such as Alzheimer’s and dementia and many developers conclude that the key unmet needs still remain: To help patients remember Maintain social contact Help perform daily activities Enhance their feelings of safety MOBILE APPLICATIONS FOR THE ELDERLY

Problems of the Elderly can be categorized coarsely into 4 categories Cognition (Attention, Memory) Motivation (Attitudes, Beliefs) Physical (Movement, Balance) Perception MOBILE APPLICATIONS FOR THE ELDERLY

Cognitive performance slows down with age Lowering the complexity of applications is vital Greatly aids design and development of mobile applications Elderly users navigate just as well as younger people with low complexity COGNITION

Those who suffer from cognitive disabilities may be able to retain their cognitive stability through the use of specialized mobile applications. HYPOTHESIS

Elderly patients (65+ years) Those with cognitive disabilities Dementia, Alzheimers Caretakers TARGET AUDIENCE

Patients suffering from these cognitive disabilities live difficult daily lives Testing of applications such as Pictural allows field to be explored further Patients' daily lives can be made easier through the use of these specialized applications IMPORTANCE

Creation of specialized mobile application Pictural targeted for elderly and cognitively impaired Will be tested on a group of elderly patients suffering from Alzheimers and / or dementia Patients are asked to identify people or things in the app Patient scores are tracked for a period of time This will show improvement or declination of symptoms METHODS & MATERIALS

Pictural is intended to be used by caretakers as well Application must appeal to them just as well as it appeals to patients Should be simple, easy to understand / troubleshoot METHODS & MATERIALS

Requires large text, large buttons GUI must be simple and easy to use '3 clicks or less' methodology Any part of the app can be accessed with 3 or fewer interactions Minimal amount of lag Multi-language support (W.I.P) USABILITY

(Pictured Left) Boards menu, each board category is listed Boards can be selected, added, or removed here (Pictured Right) Main menu of the application, all main features accessible FEATURES

(Pictured Right) Generic board titled ‘family’ Couple of pictures, several blank (Pictured Left) More information about picture Editable text, recordable memo FEATURES

(Pictured Right) A sample of the game mode Random picture, random item name from boards Simple, easy layout (Pictured Left) A sample graph of data Each node displays data per day / cumulative Can track improvement or decline over time FEATURES

(Pictured Right) The User menu, users can be selected, added or removed here (Pictured Left) Settings menu, color schemes can be changed, Facebook access FEATURES

iOS App Store MindMate Games Nutritional Advice Scheduler BrainyApp Preventative app Progress tracking COMPETITORS

Google Play Store Memory Trainer Several mental games Progress tracking Fit Bit Trainer Several memory games Fits specific workouts Game reminders and reports Advice on user's over all health COMPETITORS

Pictural consists of several 'Activities' and many 'Fragments' to fill these activities Each Activity is a main segment (e.g. main menu, board menu, user menu) Each Fragment is a portion within those activities (e.g. each board, board setup, info, games, graphs) Layouts for each activity and fragment are all stored in XML files Layouts can be interacted with dynamically in some cases, primarily for the game and board portions CODE ANALYSIS

Picture processing is done in a multi-threaded fashion When work is being done, the code must stop on that thread Results in visual lag and delays Through multi-threading, this work can be done on background threads Results in main GUI thread being left alone and can continue displaying with no hindrance CODE ANALYSIS

Test in adult care centers Record feedback from patients and caretakers Continue bug hunting and fixing Expand further onto social media Multi-language support User-created question support Add image caching FUTURE WORK

Two possible main outcomes The application shows it can improve or maintain cognitive stability in the patients It does not seem to improve or maintain any sense of stability in the patients EXPECTED OUTCOMES

Thank you! Questions? Jake Terranova Stefan Howansky Dr. Jean F. Coppola Seidenberg School of Computer Science & Information Systems Pace University