Wearable Computing Support for Objective Assessment of Function in Older Adults

Naturalistic Action Test (NAT) is a diagnostic tool that involves a participant completing a common, everyday task under the observation of a trained clinician. The clinician can identify and quantify the severity of an individuals cognitive impairments based on the his or her actions while carrying out the task. Individuals with cognitive impairments have been shown to commit errors such as performing an incorrect sequence of steps when completing a task at greater rates than individuals without cognitive impairments. This paper describes our initial experiences in developing a wearable computing-based system to support NATs. The system’s objective is to eventually help the clinician streamline the analysis of NATs by processing of the smartwatch collected sensor values to try and identify episodes that resemble errors.