Development of dementia care training system combining augmented reality and distributed tactile sensor

Scenario-based training system and demonstration

Abstract

This paper proposes a training system for a multimodal comprehensive care methodology for dementia patients named Humanitude. Humanitude has been attracting much attention as an effective care technique for dementia patients. Humanitude consists of four main techniques, namely, eye contact, verbal communication, touch, and standing up, and more than 150 care elements. Learning Humanitude thus requires much time. To train Humanitude effectively, we develop a training systemthat realizes sensing and interaction simultaneously by combining areal entity and augmented reality technology. To imitate the interaction between a patient and a caregiver, we superimpose a three-dimensional CG model of a patient’s face onto the head of a soft doll using augmented reality technology. Touch information such as position and pressure is sensed using a whole body wearable tactile sensor. The effectiveness of the proposed training system is evaluated in public lectures.