# Development and Acceptability of an Ambient In-Home Activity Assessment Tool for Stroke

> **NIH NIH R21** · UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI-COLUMBIA · 2020 · $225,085

## Abstract

1. Project Summary/Abstract
 Stroke is the leading cause of serious, long-term disability in the United States and those that do not
exercise or engage in regular activity are at a 30% increased risk of experiencing a recurrent stroke. One-on-
one rehabilitation sessions are frequently limited in number due to insurance regulations and therapists
(physical and occupational) frequently prescribe home-based exercise programs. These programs historically
have low adherence rates and patient report can often be biased, incomplete, or inaccurate. Wearable sensors
can track amount of activity but these sensors are limited in scope and cannot discern between various
activities. Depth sensors can be used in the home to detect falls and monitor in-home gait patterns of well older
adults. Other researchers have used depth sensors to detect and discern activities in laboratories or mock
home environments with a population without any disabilities. In this proposal, the Daily Activity Recognition
and Assessment System (DARAS) will merge prior ambient depth sensor work with newly developed
algorithms to objectively and accurately measure the amount and type of activity of people with stroke living at
home. This will be completed in three specific aims. The DARAS algorithms will be developed and refined for
recognizing activities of people with stroke in the kitchen environment using the Foresite depth sensor. These
algorithms will be trained using real-world data from lab-based testing with individuals with stroke (n =10). We
will refine the Convolutional Neural Networks (CNN) based algorithm for accurately segmenting and
recognizing activities from untrimmed processing of depth videos. The developed activity recognition system
will be deployed in the homes of 10 individuals with stroke over the course of 1 year. To determine the impact
on daily life and acceptability of the system and generated data, focus groups will be held with 10 individuals
with stroke. The DARAS developed in this proposal will provide a novel outcome assessment for a variety of
post-stroke interventions and provide occupational therapists the ability to detect declines in performance early
on and intervene.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10016135
- **Project number:** 5R21HD099337-02
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI-COLUMBIA
- **Principal Investigator:** Marjorie Skubic
- **Activity code:** R21 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2020
- **Award amount:** $225,085
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2019-09-10 → 2022-08-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10016135

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10016135, Development and Acceptability of an Ambient In-Home Activity Assessment Tool for Stroke (5R21HD099337-02). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-24 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10016135. Licensed CC0.

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