We want to develop technologies that create independence from the clinical setting, improve quality of life, change people’s attitudes toward their health, and motivate cultural change about health and self-care.

Below are examples of research projects that GVU faculty and students are currently working on:

Gaming in Aging
The grant consists of a series of studies that will have older adults play video games on the Nintendo Wii™ under various experimentally controlled conditions, such as varying levels of challenge, familiarity, and social interaction. The specific goals of this research program are to: understand how video games can contribute to improvements in cognition what properties of the gaming environment (novelty, active attention, and/or social interaction) are critical for cognitive improvement create an older adult specific game that loads on the critical properties identified empirically test the efficacy of this theoretically designed game to produce the largest gains in the cognitive performance of older adults.
Interactive Media Technology Center

Salud!: A Health and Wellness Self-Management Platform
Acquiring and maintaining a healthy lifestyle usually requires an individual to develop a set of personalized routines and strategies for managing everyday decisions and activities--what to eat, when to exercise, how to manage stress, etc. Strategies for developing such self-management skills are often taught to patients with chronic illnesses, such as diabetes or high blood pressure, who must also manage their everyday activities in light of their condition. We are using insights from research in clinical health self-management to develop a system for supporting healthy behavior change. Our system, Salud!, allows users to track and analyze their own metrics of health and wellness, and how these change over time in response to changes in behavior or other factors. We are currently evaluating this system to understand its effect on users' selection of personal health goals, motivation to achieve these goals, and effectiveness in doing so.
Everyday Computing Lab

Dr. J Says...
Dr. J Says... is a web based application that makes real-life meal recommendations to its users from the restaurant of their choice based on their health and taste profiles. It represents a class of tools that use information and communication technologies to translate complex medical guidelines into contextually relevant medical advice. The Dr. J Says... research project is studying the impact of such personalized, pervasive and real-life advice on patient compliance in the area of diet related chronic diseases.
Everyday Computing Lab

Health-Based Ordering Kiosk
The Health-based ordering kiosk is a restaurant menu that reorganizes itself based on a diner’s health goals. It is designed to study the effects of personalized and in-the-moment nutritional advice on ordering behavior and is currently being evaluated at a local restaurant (Tin Drum) in Tech Square.
Everyday Computing Lab

Cobot: Health Intelligence
The internet is the #1 source of healthcare information for consumers. We will demo a system that consists of AI agents participating in an online community of health information seekers. These agents monitor user conversations in the community and provide personalized as well as community-based recommendations to users. This demo will showcase an innovative approach to delivering relevant health information using a combination of Web 2.0 social networking and Artificial Intelligence content analysis techniques.
Cognitive Computing Lab

ShareTable: Synchronously Connecting Parents and Children
Parents and children sometimes face long-term separation. Staying in touch with current technology is often difficult for children because of the communicational competencies required. Collaborating on activities is a more natural way to stay in touch. The ShareTable augments videoconferencing with a shared tabletop surface that allows parents and children to do things like read, play games, and do homework together.
Ubiquitous Computing Lab
 
Short Message Service Mobile Technology for Asthma Management
SMS for asthma management supports enhancing asthma awareness and management through a low cost SMS mobile technology for pediatric patients.
Ubiquitous Computing Lab

Computer-Assisted Instruction of Social Skills for Adolescents with Autism
We are designing a system to help adolescents and young adults with autism spectrum disorders to rehearse and learn social skills with reduced aid from parents, and other caregivers. The objective is to develop technology to teach effective problem solving by allowing the individual to experience social situations and choose appropriate responses to unexpected events. The technology also assists and supports reflecting on those experiences, providing the individual with an opportunity to process information that can be recalled for later use. An exploratory user study has been conducted, and has informed the next steps for the project.
Ubiquitous Computing Lab

Supporting Parents for in-Home Capture of Problem Behaviors of Children with Developmental Disabilities
Ubicomp technology has shown promise in applications for health-care in the home. We have conducted a study with a research prototype CRAFT(Continuous Recording and Flagging Technology) to determine how a particular Ubicomp capability, selective archiving, can be used in supporting behavioral health research and practice. CRAFT was used by a team of behavioral psychologists to assess a parent’s ability to collect meaningful evidence of problematic childhood behaviors. The results of this study show the promise, and remaining challenges, of selective archiving for this behavioral health problem.
Ubiquitous Computing Lab

Asthma Education Tools
Asthma is the most common chronic disease in childhood. Particularly, children from low-income families tend to develop it more commonly. Therefore, it is important to educate them with easy access tools. Our project aims to improve pediatric asthma management status through asthma education tools that provide an enjoyable learning experience.
Ubiquitous Computing Lab

Georgia Asthma Resources
The purpose of this study is to provide current asthma related information for children with asthma and their caregivers. In particular, by developing local asthma resource web portal with participatory design, we hope to improve pediatric asthma status and public health status in GA. The web portal also includes a relevant application like 'Digital asthma slide rule'.
Ubiquitous Computing Lab