Telehealth: supporting self-management of health and community based care

Introduction: Telehealthcare is fundamental to supporting self-management of health and community based care. For people with complex physical disability the technical challenge is often around how to achieve accessible systems alongside limited or deteriorating functional ability. This paper presents user focused research into a brain computer interface (BCI) helping to sustain community based supported living.Aims: To develop a flexible BCI system for use by people with acquired brain injury at home, by providing a range of BCI paradigms to enable functional control over existing home based technologies.Methods: Using qualitative methods of participatory research with a strong lead user focus five participants based at a cedar supported living option have provided data to highlight user needs. In addition, significant user testing within the home environment has validated technical design.Results: User needs and preferences related to functional requirements and preliminary results from testing the BCI (SSVEP) can be presented.Conclusions: Systems for telehealth have become more ubiquitous for people with cognitive impairment. Telecare services for older people are fairly well developed, however, there are a significant number of people with deteriorating physical function who require issues of access to be explored. BCI offers one solution.