Wearable Technology Project

Description

This study is a collaborative project between Griffith University, ABIOS and the Acquired Brain Injury Transitional Rehabilitation Service (ABI-TRS). The study aims to investigate the feasibility and clinical utility of wearable technology (a wristband) for measuring physiological changes in people with acquired brain injury as they participate in assessment tasks that are often used in brain injury rehabilitation.

Rationale

People with acquired brain injury often experience negative emotions such as sadness, worry and frustration. While asking people about their emotions or how they feel is important, monitoring changes in their body (e.g., skin, heart rate and muscles) can also tell us how people are feeling “in the moment”.

In order to develop new ways to support people to identify and manage changes in their emotions after brain injury, more consumer-friendly approaches to measuring these changes are needed.

Participants

Individuals with ABI who have no history of cardiac problems and their family/caregivers

Key Features

Trialling new technology within community settings

Focus on understanding physiological expression of emotional changes that people experience during rehabilitation

Funding

This project is funded under a Griffith University Health Seed Grant

Research/Evaluation Strategies

Study 1: Systematic review of emotion regulation difficulties after ABI

Study 2: Co-measurement study involving healthy controls (calibration of the wristband) during self-reflection and feedback tasks

Study 3:

• Comparison between healthy controls and people with ABI on subjective (questionnaire) and objective (physiological) indices of emotion regulation
• Relationship between subjective measures of mood and emotion regulation and objective indices

Publications

There are no publications to date from this study