A Virtual Environment Gesture Interaction System for People with Dementia

Authors. Alexander Bejan, Markus Wieland, Patrizia Murko, Christophe Kunze

Venue. DIS (2018)

Materials. DOI

Abstract. As dementia will most likely become an impactful challenge for our future society, it is imperative to maintain the well-being of the diverse group of people with dementia (PwD). Thus, appropriate interventions that effectively trigger identity-stabilizing memories, and at the same time encourage sensorimotor activities, have to be designed and implemented. To that end, we present a novel natural user interface (NUI) system combined with a reminiscence-provoking virtual 3D environment (VE). With it, PwD can delve into memories while interacting with the VE over dementia-fitted gestures. The results of the preliminary evaluations are promising, as they show that most PwD get immersed and cheerfully engage in gesture interactions after a short settling-in period.

@inproceedings{10.1145/3197391.3205440,
    title        = {A Virtual Environment Gesture Interaction System for People with Dementia},
    author       = {Bejan, Alexander and Wieland, Markus and Murko, Patrizia and Kunze, Christophe},
    year         = {2018},
    booktitle    = {Proceedings of the 2018 ACM Conference Companion Publication on Designing Interactive Systems},
    publisher    = {ACM},
    series       = {DIS '18 Companion},
    pages        = {225–230},
    doi          = {10.1145/3197391.3205440},
    url          = {https://doi.org/10.1145/3197391.3205440},
    abstract     = {As dementia will most likely become an impactful challenge for our future society, it is imperative to maintain the well-being of the diverse group of people with dementia (PwD). Thus, appropriate interventions that effectively trigger identity-stabilizing memories, and at the same time encourage sensorimotor activities, have to be designed and implemented. To that end, we present a novel natural user interface (NUI) system combined with a reminiscence-provoking virtual 3D environment (VE). With it, PwD can delve into memories while interacting with the VE over dementia-fitted gestures. The results of the preliminary evaluations are promising, as they show that most PwD get immersed and cheerfully engage in gesture interactions after a short settling-in period.},
    numpages     = {6},
    keywords     = {reminiscence therapy, joyful, dementia, natural user interfaces, virtual environment, fun moments, memory triggering, gesture interaction, virtual reality}
}