Article Excerpt: Digital technology promises to be a source of valuable tools to promote health and healthy behavior among an aging population. These tools already include mobile phone apps that help you make highly customized choices about nutrition and fitness, web-based virtual exercise coaches and health advisers, and websites that serve as community-health bulletin boards for sharing ideas, resources, tips, and encouragement. Computer science professor, Tim Bickmore, is creating Web-based “relational agents”—in effect, healthcare avatars—that can function as exercise coaches, social companions, nurses, and home health aides. In a recent study funded by the National Science Foundation, Bickmore tested the effectiveness of his healthcare avatar, Tanya, in helping Boston Medical Center geriatric patients improve their mobility through a walking regimen. Computer science and health science expert, Stephen Intille, is working to create smartphone applications that provide a stream of personalized information, in real time, that enables people to understand and improve their health-related choices. Intille and his research partners are combining external sensors with the device’s internal features, such as GPS, to collect and synthesize real-time data about your habits, location, and choices.
Full Article: http://tinyurl.com/d8mcs7t
Article Source: Northeastern Magazine