Visually-aided smart kitchen environment for senior citizens suffering from dementia

Abstract

In this study we proposed a design for a smart kitchen environment, which facilitated the senior citizens suffering from dementia and their caregivers. The idea of smart kitchen environment was that it was context aware and had the learning ability to adapt itself to fit senior citizens with dementia's habits and living conditions. This study developed a way to design steps and collect data elements of the coffee-making process for a cooking workflow system. Caregivers were able to instruct senior citizens suffering from dementia remotely using this cooking workflow system. A multiple cameras based visual surveillance system was designed to facilitate the observation of cooking objects and senior citizens with dementia's cooking conditions in the kitchen, audio and graphical assistance were used to deliver instructions to the senior citizens with dementia. The smart kitchen environment is concretized into a smart kitchen prototype, this prototype affirmed the feasibility of the smart kitchen environment, and also revealed the areas for further improvement.