cARe: An Augmented Reality Support System for Geriatric Inpatients with Mild Cognitive Impairment

Cognitive impairment such as memory loss, an impaired executive function and decreasing motivation can gradually undermine instrumental activities of daily living (IADL). With an older growing population, previous works have explored assistive technologies (ATs) to automate repetitive components of therapy and thereby increase patients’ autonomy and reduce dependence on carers. While most ATs were built around screens and projection-based augmented reality (AR), the potential of head-mounted displays (HMDs) for therapeutic assistance is still under-explored. As a contribution to this effort we present cARe, an HMD-based AR framework that uses in-situ instructions and a guidance mechanism to assist patients with manual tasks. In a case study with six geriatric patients, we investigated the prototype’s feasibility during a cooking task in comparison to a regular paper-based recipe. Qualitative and quantitative results indicate that cARe has potential to offer assistance to older individuals with declining cognitive function in their day-to-day tasks and increase their independence in an enjoyable way.