Caregiver’s eye gaze and field of view presumption method during bathing care in elderly facility

Abstract

Japan faces a critical need for nursing care as its elderly population continues to grow along with a rise in dementia, the number of elderly people who are bedridden and require extended care. Bathing is one of the most important aspects of daily life in which provision of better quality care can improve quality of life. However, in many elderly facilities, bathing is fraught with dangers, such as falling and drowning in a big bath. Bathroom floors can be slippery and cause residents to fall, and the constant vigilance required can cause caregivers significant mental stress. Advancement in biomechanics along with the development of nursing care devices had reduced the physical stress on the caregivers. However, the efforts to relieve mental burdens are still insufficient, especially when caring with elderly people or those suffering from dementia, whose actions are rather unpredictable. By measuring the caregiver’s eye gaze and field of view, we believe we would be able to locate the blind spots during bathing care. With the use of the data gathered we aim to develop a system to improve bathing as a good experience to the customer and a less stressful task to the caregiver. While measurement by video camera was considered optimal, we conducted the experiment using motion sensors due to privacy concerns. We performed four experiments to progress towards our final result set. This paper focuses on the second of these experiments.