A Transfer Learning-Based Smart Homecare Assistive Technology to Support Activities of Daily Living for People with Mild Dementia

People with dementia (PwD) experience widespread cognitive impairment, leading to challenges in carrying out routine tasks known as activities of daily living (ADLs) and especially more complex instrumental ADLs (IADLs). Without adequate support, PwD becomes highly susceptible to a loss of independence and vulnerability. Various assistive technologies (ATs) have been proposed to assist PwD with mild conditions to complete some IADL tasks independently. However, most existing AT devices provide limited IADL support to PwD with little or no user-specific customization. This paper presents our early development of a new homecare assistive tool for PwD with mild conditions, called CATcare (Cognitive Assistive Technology Care). Our CATcare system can be operated and configured on a smartphone or smart glasses and further customized by a caregiver according to the specific IADL needs of a care recipient. It can provide IADL-specific step-by-step cueing, prompting, and timely feedback to assist PwD in accomplishing the task of interest. Our research leverages the capabilities of transfer learning from AI models in indoor localization, object detection, and Natural Language Processing (NLP) and shows the potential and promise to develop a customizable and personalizable CATcare tool. This CATcare system is intended to improve the life quality of PwD and reduce the burden of their caregivers.