Monitoring Computer Interactions in the Elderly

Abstract

he overall objective of this one-year pilot is to test our newly developed prototype software for monitoring computer interactions of elders in their residential environment for the ultimate purpose of detecting cognitive decline. This work will prepare us for a larger study to test the effectiveness of the approach. The specific aims for this pilot study are 1) to test and refine the ability of the software to run reliably and independently in older people’s residences for a 6 month period; and 2) To test and refine our ability to train older people to use the software routinely and to keep them engaged and interested in using computers throughout a 6 month period. We will test the system in a small number of elders’ residences and refine our software and deployment protocol based on the feedback from this study. We will test our monitoring software for keyboard entry (typing speed and accuracy), mouse movement (trajectory, speed, and accuracy) and overall computer application use. Although we will focus our enrollment on elders who already use computers, we will also be testing our ability to train elders to use a new software environment (Web portal) with easy access to email, word processing, news of interest to elders, and general Web browsing. Our goal will be to demonstrate that with active management of the software environment with tailored news and email communications, we will be able to maintain sufficient usage of the computer applications by elders that will provide us with adequate data for continuous monitoring of computer interactions over sustained periods of time. This pilot project will prepare us for larger trials of our computer monitoring software over sufficient periods of time where we can test the effectiveness of algorithms in detecting early signs of cognitive impairment.