# A holistic approach to monitoring, measuring, and facilitating engagement among ALF residents

> **NIH NIH R43** · CAREBAND, INC. · 2021 · $288,635

## Abstract

Project Abstract
Older adults residing in assisted living facilities (ALF) have been known to experience high levels of
psychological problems (e.g., social isolation, loneliness, and depression) and cognitive functional decline. By
participating in a variety of leisure activities (defined here as individual and social activities in which participants
engage with freedom of choice and have a personally meaningful experience), ALF residents can reduce
negative psychosocial problems and concerns, promote positive social interactions with others, and enhance
overall health quality. During activities, ALF staff generally lead the activity, monitor resident engagement, and
provide a report on whether the engagement reached a “meaningful” level or not. The problem is that defining
“meaningful engagement” is highly subjective and must be evaluated against each resident’s individual goals—
requiring an extensive amount of staff time. A higher quality, less time intensive, and more reliable method for
monitoring, measuring and facilitating engagement is needed to ensure residents receive the greatest overall
benefits from leisure and social activities. A growing body of evidence demonstrates that wearable sensors and
technology can be utilized to detect an individual’s daily activity and behaviors. These studies lay the
foundation for the establishment of the Appraise to Assist (A2A) system. The proposed A2A system will be
developed by integrating two existing technologies—both designed specifically to meet the needs of older
adults—CareBand (a wearable device developed by CareBand, Inc.) and RememberStuff (an interactive
tablet-based platform developed by Eperture LLC). Led by CareBand, this SBIR proposes to develop A2A to
passively monitor, empirically measure and unobtrusively facilitate engagement among residents to
quantitatively and holistically measure leisure and social engagement. The overall objective is to engineer an
A2A system that will quantify leisure engagement and social interactions of individuals residing in ALF that is
statistically significant, feasible, usable and acceptable by residents, families, and staff. Phase I Aims are: 1)
Conduct focus groups and interviews with residents, families, and facility staff of ALFs to gain deeper
understanding of market requirements and use cases for the integrated technology; 2) Establish a secure
integration between CareBand and RememberStuff to allow reciprocal data exchange and to create reports for
staff, family, and residents; and 3) Conduct feasibility and usability study among 15 potential end users in an
ALF. At the end of Phase I, CareBand and R/S will have implemented the technology in an ALF, received user
feedback on the hardware and software capable of measuring leisure engagement, and assessed correlation
of engagement data (collected by RememberStuff) with the quantitative movement data (collected by the
CareBand). Phase II will focus on the construction of feedback algorithms to pa...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10324934
- **Project number:** 1R43AG074753-01
- **Recipient organization:** CAREBAND, INC.
- **Principal Investigator:** Adam Russek-Sobol
- **Activity code:** R43 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2021
- **Award amount:** $288,635
- **Award type:** 1
- **Project period:** 2021-09-30 → 2023-03-29

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10324934

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10324934, A holistic approach to monitoring, measuring, and facilitating engagement among ALF residents (1R43AG074753-01). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-23 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10324934. Licensed CC0.

---

*[NIH grants dataset](/datasets/nih-grants) · CC0 1.0*