A home intervention augmented reality tool for occupational therapists

Abstract

The purpose of this project is to design a tablet-based AR application for use by OTs in home care. This application would allow OTs to support individuals with physical impairment and disability when making home modifications. Specifically, OTs would be able to search and show assistive technologies (ATs) for individuals to purchase and install to compensate for their reduced abilities and maintain independent living. The main purpose of this project includes enabling the OTs and their clients to envision the most appropriate scenarios when purchasing and utilizing ATs in the home. Several research methods have been employed to inform and evaluate the AR design as described in the followings: 1) literature review of related studies on assistive technology and augmented reality, 2)semi-structured interviews to understand current challenges in home modifications of people with disabilities; 3) participatory workshops to co-design an AR prototype with the OTs and their clients. 4) prototyping the AR tool following an iterative process, and 5) User study to evaluate the product satisfaction with OTs. Our user study revealed the potential of AR to include the home environment context when considering ATs and to improve the involvement from people with physical impairments or disabilities (PwIDs) to make the process more people-focused, both of which can result in an increase of buy-in from PwIDs and a decrease of AT abandonment.