Carolina Rubio presents her Master thesis

Nov 08, 2011

President: Professor Pedro Manuel Moreira Vaz Antunes de Sousa

Director: Professor Rui Filipe Fernandes Prada

Co-director: Professor Ulises Cortés

Vogais: Professor João Manuel Brisson Lopes

Date: 3/11/2011 – 14:30h / Sala de Reuniões 1, do Pavilhão de

Informática II, IST – Alameda.

Abstract: In the context of Assistive Technologies (AT), the present

work addresses the improvement and greater adaptability of iTutorials, a

supportive system we have been working on over the last two years, and

which is intended to provide in-home support to cognitively impaired

older adults in the performance of Activities of Daily Living (ADLs).

The new approach to iTutorials resulted in a more adaptive system

addressing, on the one hand, activity guidance based on the actual

context and the user profile, and on the other hand, the design of an

interactive interface tailored to the user needs in an attempt to

mitigate the physical decline and memory loss affecting our target

users. The agent-based architecture of iTutorials deploys a distributed

system that allows caregivers to enter and manage data from a different

device than the touch-screen computer where the user interface runs.

Empiric results obtained while testing with real Portuguese older

volunteers demonstrated that our application is easy to learn and

pleasant to use, and proved its aid to elderly users with cognitive

disabilities in the accomplishment of basic tasks.