title: Unobtrusive in-home detection of time spent out-of-home with applications to loneliness and physical activity.
abstract: Loneliness is a common condition in elderly associated with severe health consequences including increased mortality, decreased cognitive function, and poor quality of life. Identifying and assisting lonely individuals is therefore increasingly important-especially in the home setting-as the very nature of loneliness often makes it difficult to detect by traditional methods. One critical component in assessing loneliness unobtrusively is to measure time spent out-of-home, as loneliness often presents with decreased physical activity, decreased motor functioning, and a decline in activities of daily living, all of which may cause decrease in the amount of time spent outside the home. Using passive and unobtrusive in-home sensing technologies, we have developed a methodology for detecting time spent out-of-home based on logistic regression. Our approach was both sensitive (0.939) and specific (0.975) in detecting time out-of-home across over 41,000 epochs of data collected from four subjects monitored for at least 30 days each in their own homes. In addition to linking time spent out-of-home to loneliness, (r = -0.44, p = 0.011) as measured by the UCLA Loneliness Index, we demonstrate its usefulness in other applications such as uncovering general behavioral patterns of elderly and exploring the link between time spent out-of-home and physical activity ( r = 0.415, p = 0.031), as measured by the Berkman Social Disengagement Index.
authors.forename: Johanna
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Petersen
authors.forename: Daniel
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Austin
authors.forename: Jeffrey A
authors.initials: JA
authors.lastname: Kaye
authors.forename: Misha
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Pavel
authors.forename: Tamara L
authors.initials: TL
authors.lastname: Hayes
mesh_terms: D000203:Activities of Daily Living / Q000145:classification*; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D006801:Humans; D016015:Logistic Models; D008132:Loneliness; D008491:Medical Informatics Applications; D008991:Monitoring, Physiologic / Q000379:methods*; D011788:Quality of Life; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D017216:Telemedicine