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Visual Working Memory Training of the Elderly in VIRTRAEL Personalized Assistant

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Book cover Personal Assistants: Emerging Computational Technologies

Part of the book series: Intelligent Systems Reference Library ((ISRL,volume 132))

Abstract

Personal assistants using emerging technologies are showing a great potential to provide an important impact in different aspects of daily human life currently and during the near future. They are usually intended to help people with especial needs. The one presented in this chapter, called VIRTRAEL, is especially designed to assess, stimulate and train several cognitive skills that experience a decline as people age, reason why its target public is the elderly, as well as the therapists who treat them. VIRTRAEL is made up of different types of exercises, each of them specifically designed to evaluate and stimulate a different cognitive function. After presenting an overview of our tool, we focus on one of its exercises, the one devoted to the classification and memorization of images, which is intended to train the visual working memory. We also present a configuration tool that allows the therapists to customize and adapt each exercise to the preferences and needs of a given user. Moreover, we show some results of a pilot study carried out with a sample of elderly people.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    https://www.w3.org/WAI/older-users/developing.html.

  2. 2.

    http://www.rehacom.us/index.php/aboutrehacom.

  3. 3.

    http://www.cogmed.com/.

  4. 4.

    https://www.cognifit.com.

  5. 5.

    http://www.ides.es/gradior.

  6. 6.

    http://www.everyware.es/webs/virtrael/.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Software Engineering Department, ETSIIT, CITIC, University of Granada, Granada, Spain

    Miguel J. Hornos, Carlos Rodríguez-Domínguez, María Luisa Rodríguez-Almendros & María José Rodríguez-Fórtiz

  2. CIMCYC, University of Granada, Granada, Spain

    Sandra Rute-Pérez & Alfonso Caracuel

Authors
  1. Miguel J. Hornos
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  2. Sandra Rute-Pérez
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  3. Carlos Rodríguez-Domínguez
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  4. María Luisa Rodríguez-Almendros
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  5. María José Rodríguez-Fórtiz
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  6. Alfonso Caracuel
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Correspondence to Miguel J. Hornos .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Departamento de Informática/Centro ALGORITMI, Escola de Engenharia, Universidade do Minho, Braga, Portugal

    Angelo Costa

  2. Department of Computer Systems and Computation, Polytechnic University of Valencia, Valencia, Spain

    Vicente Julian

  3. Departamento de Informática/Centro ALGORITMI, Escola de Engenharia, Universidade do Minho, Braga, Portugal

    Paulo Novais

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Hornos, M.J., Rute-Pérez, S., Rodríguez-Domínguez, C., Rodríguez-Almendros, M.L., Rodríguez-Fórtiz, M.J., Caracuel, A. (2018). Visual Working Memory Training of the Elderly in VIRTRAEL Personalized Assistant. In: Costa, A., Julian, V., Novais, P. (eds) Personal Assistants: Emerging Computational Technologies. Intelligent Systems Reference Library, vol 132. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-62530-0_4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-62530-0_4

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