Home-Based Monitoring of Eating in Adolescents: A Pilot Study

Objectives: To investigate eating episodes in a group of adolescents in their home-setting using wearable electromyography (EMG) and camera, and to evaluate the agreement between the two devices. Approach: Fifteen adolescents (15.5 ± 1.3 years) had a smartphone-assisted wearable-EMG device attached to the jaw to assess chewing features over one evening. EMG outcomes included chewing pace, time, episode count, and mean power. An automated wearable-camera worn on the chest facing outwards recorded four images/minute. The agreement between the camera and the EMG device in detecting eating episodes was evaluated by calculating specificity, sensitivity, and accuracy. Main results: The features of eating episodes identified by EMG throughout the entire recording time were (mean (SD)); chewing pace 1.64 (0.20) Hz, time 10.5 (10.4) minutes, episodes count 56.8 (39.0), and power 32.1% (4.3). The EMG device identified 5.1 (1.8) eating episodes lasting 27:51 (16:14) minutes whereas the cameras indicated 2.4 (2.1) episodes totaling 14:49 (11:18) minutes, showing that the EMG-identified chewing episodes were not all detected by the camera. However, overall accuracy of eating episodes identified ranged from 0.8 to 0.92. Significance: The combination of wearable EMG and camera is a promising tool to investigate eating behaviors in research and clinical-settings.

Capturing the Information-seeking of Students Employing a Wearable Camera: Discussions of Application in School Libraries

Utilizing wayfinding, think-aloud protocol (TAP), retrospective think-aloud protocol (RTAP), and a wearable camera, the actions, thoughts and feelings of an autistic college freshman and a neurotypical peer are recorded as they navigate their campus library in search of materials. The library website, virtual maps to resource locations, and library workers served equally as enablers and barriers to both students in their information seeking. This proof of concept study demonstrates that participant viewpoint ethnography is a viable research methodology that could be applied in school libraries for both neurotypical and autistic students.

Evaluation of Wearable Cameras for Monitoring and Analyzing Calf Behavior: A Preliminary Study

Understanding cattle behavior is important for discerning their health and management status. However, manual observations of cattle are time-consuming and labor-intensive. Moreover, during manual observations, the presence or position of a human observer may alter the normal behavior of the cattle. Wearable cameras are small and lightweight; therefore, they do not disturb cattle behavior when attached to their bodies. Thus, this study aimed to evaluate the suitability of wearable cameras for monitoring and analyzing cattle behavior. From December 18 to 27, 2017, this study used four 2-month-old, group-housed Holstein calves at the Field Science Center of the Obihiro University of Agriculture and Veterinary Medicine, Japan. Calf behavior was recorded every 30 s using a wearable camera (HX-A1H, Panasonic, Japan) from 10:00 to 15:30 and observed directly from 11:00 to 12:00 and 14:00 to 15:00. In addition, the same observer viewed the camera recordings corresponding to the direct observation periods, and the results were compared. The correlation coefficients of all behavioral data from direct and wearable camera video observations were significant (p < 0.01). We conclude that wearable cameras are suitable for observing calf behavior, particularly their posture (standing or lying), as well as their ruminating and feeding behaviors.

Using a wearable camera to support everyday memory following brain injury: a single-case study

Background: Wearable cameras have been shown to improve memory in people with hippocampal amnesia and Alzheimer's disease. It is not known whether this benefit extends to people with amnesia of complex or uncertain origin. Method: This case study examined the effect of wearable camera use on memory and occupational performance in a patient with memory loss and complex mental health problems following a severe neurological incident. With the help of his occupational therapist (OT), Mr A used a wearable camera to record a series of eight personally significant events over a 6-week period. During visits from his OT, Mr A was asked to report what he could remember about the events, both before (baseline) and during the review of time-lapsed photographs captured automatically by the camera. Results: The results showed striking improvements in recall while reviewing the photographs, relative to baseline recall, but the additional details recalled during review did not appear to be maintained at later tests, after several days. Across the study period, there were moderate increases in occupational performance, measured using the Canadian Occupational Performance Measure. However, after the study period ended, Mr A ceased to use the wearable camera due to technological difficulty. Conclusion: There was a clear benefit of wearable camera use, but the real-world impact of the technology was limited by the complexity of the system. The results of the study are discussed alongside novel clinical insights and suggestions for developing wearable camera support systems that can be used independently by people with memory problems.

Validation of Wearable Camera Still Images to Assess Posture in Free-Living Conditions

Purpose: To assess the convergent validity of body-worn wearable camera still images (IMGs) for determining posture compared with activPAL (AP) classifications. Methods: The participants (n = 16, mean age 46.7 ± 23.8 years, 9 F) wore an Autographer wearable camera and an AP during three 2-hr free-living visits. IMGs were on average 8.47 s apart and were annotated with output consisting of events, transitory states, unknown, and gaps. The events were annotations that matched AP classifications (sit, stand, and move), consisting of at least three IMGs; the transitory states were posture annotations fewer than three IMGs; the unknowns were IMGs that could not be accurately classified; and the gaps were the time between annotations. For the analyses, the annotation and AP output were converted to 1-s epochs. The total and average length of visits and events were reported in minutes. Bias and 95% confidence intervals for event posture times from IMGs to AP were calculated to determine accuracy and precision. Confusion matrices using total AP posture times were computed to determine misclassification. Results: Forty-three visits were analyzed, with a total visit and event time of 5,027.73 and 4,237.23 min, respectively, and the average visit and event lengths being 116.92 and 98.54 min, respectively. Bias was not statistically significant for sitting, but was significant for standing and movement (0.84, −6.87, and 6.04 min, respectively). From confusion matrices, IMGs correctly classified sitting, standing, and movement (85.69%, 54.87%, and 69.41%, respectively) of total AP time. Conclusion: Wearable camera IMGs provide a good estimation of overall sitting time. Future work is warranted to improve posture classifications and examine the validity of IMGs in assessing activity-type behaviors.