A ground-breaking project to support the UK’s ageing population through the use of responsive and interactive avatars has moved a step closer.
The use of the avatar, known as RITA (Responsive InTeractive Advocate), was demonstrated via a four-minute film presented at the Kings Fund’s International Digital Health and Care Congress in London on 11 September. The film demonstrated RITA appearing on a tablet device to help an elderly woman late at night.
The University of Kent’s Centre for Child Protection is heading a consortium of partners on the project, which is one of six developed from a national Technology Strategy Board initiative that aims to create new cost-effective ways of helping elderly people to comfortably and independently live in their own homes, if desired.
RITA, which harnesses emerging technologies from the entertainment industry, brings together three primary elements in personalised care:
- a friendly face, encouraging communication and interaction, represented by a realistic and emotionally expressive virtual avatar;
- the mind, as an ‘essence’ repository for storage and organisation of all personal and memory-related information, where access is determined by the user;
- an empathetic communication system that is capable of understanding and responding to the psychological needs and emotional welfare of the user.
Amongst its many possibilities, RITA could monitor heart rate and blood pressure, remind people to take medication, and would know if they had fallen over or were in pain and alert the doctor or the emergency services. It would also be able to analyse their speech, movement and facial expression to detect their mood and respond accordingly. The system would not require computer literacy and would be no more challenging to operate than switching on a television.
The next phase of RITA is to go from proof of concept to building a working prototype. Funding is currently being sought to do this and take it forward.
For more information contact Gary Hughes