title: A Smart-Home System to Unobtrusively and Continuously Assess Loneliness in Older Adults.
abstract: Loneliness is a common condition in older adults and is associated with increased morbidity and mortality, decreased sleep quality, and increased risk of cognitive decline. Assessing loneliness in older adults is challenging due to the negative desirability biases associated with being lonely. Thus, it is necessary to develop more objective techniques to assess loneliness in older adults. In this paper, we describe a system to measure loneliness by assessing in-home behavior using wireless motion and contact sensors, phone monitors, and computer software as well as algorithms developed to assess key behaviors of interest. We then present results showing the accuracy of the system in detecting loneliness in a longitudinal study of 16 older adults who agreed to have the sensor platform installed in their own homes for up to 8 months. We show that loneliness is significantly associated with both time out-of-home ([Formula: see text] and [Formula: see text]) and number of computer sessions ([Formula: see text] and [Formula: see text]). [Formula: see text] for the model was 0.35. We also show the model's ability to predict out-of-sample loneliness, demonstrating that the correlation between true loneliness and predicted out-of-sample loneliness is 0.48. When compared with the University of California at Los Angeles loneliness score, the normalized mean absolute error of the predicted loneliness scores was 0.81 and the normalized root mean squared error was 0.91. These results represent first steps toward an unobtrusive, objective method for the prediction of loneliness among older adults, and mark the first time multiple objective behavioral measures that have been related to this key health outcome.
authors: Oregon Center for Aging and Technology Department of Neurology Oregon Health & Science University Portland OR 97239 USA.
authors: Johanna
authors: J
authors: Austin
authors: Oregon Center for Aging and Technology Department of Neurology Oregon Health & Science University Portland OR 97239 USA.
authors: Hiroko H
authors: HH
authors: Dodge
authors: Oregon Center for Aging and Technology Department of Neurology Oregon Health & Science University Portland OR 97239 USA.
authors: Thomas
authors: T
authors: Riley
authors: Department of Biomedical Engineering Oregon Health & Science University Portland OR 97239 USA.
authors: Peter G
authors: PG
authors: Jacobs
authors: Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral SciencesUniversity of WashingtonSeattleWA98102USA; Geriatric Research, Education, and Clinical CenterSeattle VA Medical CenterSeattleWA98108USA.
authors: Stephen
authors: S
authors: Thielke
authors: Oregon Center for Aging and Technology Department of Neurology Oregon Health & Science University Portland OR 97239 USA.
authors: Jeffrey
authors: J
authors: Kaye
keywords: In-home monitoring; ambient assessment; loneliness; longitudinal models; older adults