22 research outputs found
Detecting Cognitive Impairment Using Keystroke and Linguistic Features of Typed Text: Toward an Adaptive Method for Continuous Monitoring of Cognitive Status
No full textEfficacy of personalized models in discriminating high cognitive demand conditions using text-based interactions
No full textTailoring Reports for Patient-Reported Health Information within Digital Health Tools: Impacts on the Quality of Values Elicitation and Clarification for Complex Treatment Decision-Making in Older Adults with Advanced Cancers
No full textFor older adults (≥60) with advanced cancer, treatment decisions may vary substantially from those diagnosed at an earlier stage. Often these patients feel their values and concerns are not incorporated in treatment decisions. Effective methods are needed to elicit, discuss and incorporate patient values into treatment decisions. Best-worst scaling (BWS) is a theory driven approach used in healthcare to elicit values. Tailoring health information, including question prompt lists, can encourage patients to actively participate in consultations. This dissertation addresses a research gap in understanding how tailoring summary reports based on patients’ values elicited from a BWS instrument can prepare and encourage patients to discuss their values and engage in shared decision-making (SDM). This dissertation was conducted in four stages; engagement, development, pretesting, and pilot testing of a values-clarification tool called VOICE. During engagement and development, key stakeholders engaged in concept mapping activities, resulting in consensus on 7 treatment values and 2-3 question prompts per value that are important to older adults with advanced cancer. This aim emphasized participatory engagement among diverse stakeholders and incorporation of tailoring techniques to ensure VOICE was relevant to the intended patient population. During pretesting, participants perceived VOICE to be effective, acceptable, and useful for preparing older adults with advanced cancer to engage in values-based discussions with their clinicians. Patients’ desire to assess, reassess and discuss their values must be incorporated into consultations, and patients want to work with their clinician to align their care with what matters most to them as an individual. During pilot testing, VOICE was found to be more useful in preparing patients to discuss their values than an American Cancer Society flyer, and patients had a clear preference for values-based discussions. This dissertation provided evidence that VOICE resulted in higher quality values-based discussions while highlighting the need for values-clarification training for medical students and oncologists. This dissertation advances knowledge regarding values-clarification, yet further research is still needed to better understand the influencers and contextual factors that provide facilitation or barriers to improving engagement between patients and clinicians and ensures patients values are discussed, understood, and incorporated into treatment decisions.Doctor of Philosoph
Generations in the workplace:an exploratory study with administrative assistants
No full textTo better support older adults in the workplace, this Study examines the strategies workers employ to learn software and complete tasks. The purpose of the overall research project is to understand how to help older workers adapt to and remain productive in the workplace. This knowledge may inform the design and development of training modules and software extensions to accommodate the needs of workers as they age. This paper describes all exploratory study in which administrative assistants at an industrial research facility were interviewed and Surveyed about their work practices, preferences, and attitudes. The data revealed a high level of communication, knowledge sharing, and collaboration among the assistants. Possibilities for future research lire inclusion of workers at other companies and in other jobs, examination of the motivations and attitudes Surrounding work behavior, and development of design guidelines for software tools.</p
“It’s Not Just Technology, It’s People”: Constructing a Conceptual Model of Shared Health Informatics for Tracking in Chronic Illness Management (Preprint)
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BACKGROUND
For many people, tracking health indicators is central to managing a chronic illness. However, previous informatics research has largely viewed tracking as a solitary process that lacks the characteristics essential to tracking in support of chronic illness management.
OBJECTIVE
To inform development of effective technologies that aid tracking of health indicators to support chronic illness management, this study aimed to construct a health informatics model that accurately describes the work and social context of that tracking work.
METHODS
As part of a larger project, we conducted semistructured interviews with 40 adults concerning their chronic illness management practices, including tracking and communication. We also assembled transcripts of 30 publicly available videos of 24 adults discussing tracking processes for managing their own chronic illness. We used qualitative methods to analyze interviews and video transcripts through the lens of ongoing personal and health informatics research.
RESULTS
We have described the people and work involved in tracking in support of chronic illness management and contributed a Conceptual Model of Shared Health Informatics (CoMSHI). Specifically, we identified the need for a health informatics model that (1) incorporates the ongoing nature of tracking work and (2) represents the social dimension of tracking for illness management. Our model depicts communication, information, collection, integration, reflection, and action work in the social context of the person with chronic illness, informal carers, health care providers, and community members.
CONCLUSIONS
The resulting CoMSHI yields a more detailed and nuanced viewpoint of tracking in support of chronic illness management and can inform technology design to improve tracking tools to support people in more confident and capable chronic illness management.
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Adaptive majority problems for restricted query graphs and for weighted sets
No full textSuppose that the vertices of a graph G are colored with two colors in an unknown way. The color that occurs on more than half of the vertices is called the majority color (if it exists), and any vertex of this color is called a majority vertex. We study the problem of finding a majority vertex (or show that none exists), if we can query edges to learn whether their endpoints have the same or different colors. Denote the least number of queries needed in the worst case by m(G). It was shown by Saks and Werman that m(K-n) = n - b(n), where b(n) is the number of 1's in the binary representation of n.In this paper we initiate the study of the problem for general graphs. The obvious bounds for a connected graph G on n vertices are n - b(n) <= m(G) <= n - 1. We show that for any tree T on an even number of vertices we have m(T) = n - 1, and that for any tree T on an odd number of vertices, we have n - 65 <= m(T) <= n-2. Our proof uses results about the weighted version of the problem for K-n, which may be of independent interest. We also exhibit a sequence G(n) of graphs with m(G(n)) = n - b(n) such that G(n) has O(nb(n)) edges and n vertices. (C) 2020 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier B.V.DC
