Journaling tool for caregivers Poster presented at WISH 2019 CHI 2019

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WriteMind: a Journal for Caregivers
Leveraging Sentiment Analysis to Provide Resource Recommendations
Vivian Genaro Motti, Olga Lorenz, Chris Hill, Mehak Khokar
Nathaniel Kamau, Jesus Mejilas Garcia, Laura Schoenborn
George Mason University
WriteMind is an interactive journal that uses sentiment analysis of diary
entries to provide resource recommendations for caregivers. WriteMind
helps with self-care, raising caregivers’ awareness about their sentiments.
Caregivers are responsible for numerous stressful activities and feel often
overwhelmed. They face problems that range from socio-economic burden
to emotional distress. Caregivers are not always trained professionals, and
often execute their activities voluntarily.
WriteMind
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http://s2s.care/resources/caregiver-statistics-reports
[8] Rachel Stuck and Wendy Rogers. 2017. Understanding Older Adult’s
Perceptions of Factors that Support Trust in Human
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[9] World Health Organization et al. 2016. Working for health and growth: investing
in the health workforce. (2016)
The potential of technology to support caregiving is promising to provide socio-emotional support, to improve self-care, and to stimulate cognitive
functions. WriteMind raise users awareness about resources. Despite being specified and implemented after an in-depth interview with
caregivers, additional evaluations showed that not all caregivers have the time to sit and write about their days. Unless it is already a habit, it
may be challenging to foster adoption.
Discussion
Technology advances contributed to provide socio-emotional
support for caregivers and older adults, however most
solutions focus on unidirectional channels, primarily giving
voice to the elderly, instead of helping to fulfill caregivers’
needs.
WriteMind is a journaling tool that enables caregivers to
express their emotions, thoughts, and feelings and to receive
relevant resource recommendations. WriteMind is a low-cost,
accessible, and intuitive solution. As future work, we will
integrate WriteMind with voice assistants, so that caregivers
who do not have the habit to write can talk about their
concerns. The automated transcription of the voice recognition
could serve for sentiment analysis and recommendations of
services and products. There are concerns related to the
accuracy of the algorithms of recognition, and the unfamiliarity
of caregivers with voice-based interaction; as well as privacy
and security concerns associated to the tool, for users to fully
benefit from the journal they have to trust the system.
Conclusion
The aging of the world’s population affects healthcare and caregiving
services [6], impacting service delivery, healthcare professionals and direct
care workforce. 3.5 million additional healthcare professionals will be
needed by 2030 [5], with geriatrics and mental health standing out as
priorities for specialized workplaces [9]. Caregiving services are
increasingly needed, but they are also scarce, expensive and difficult to
scale, especially when provided individually without technology. To provide
care, monitoring and interventions, caregivers assist older adults with
companionship, reminders for medication, daily living activities, physical
exercises, and cognitive stimulation.
Caregivers feel overwhelmed due to their high workload. They are often
untrained and subject to high stress levels [7] [2]. The shortage of care
professionals increases the demand for caregiving services. Such
activities, unless augmented by technologies, will result in poorer individual
outcomes [3]. Caring from a distance is more challenging, emotionally and
logistically [1]. Thus, providing home health care becomes one of the best
interventions to support comfortable aging [8], especially when
technologies that respond to the growing demand for caregivers are
integrated [4].
[ Five mockups of WriteMind illustrating login and menu (top), account
settings (middle), and diary entry (bottom). ]
References
Features
WriteMind was implemented in Ruby on Rails and React to enable caregivers to express their thoughts and feelings by writing. The project
specification derives from an analysis of caregivers’ needs for self-care and socio-emotional support. WriteMind integrates sentiment analysis
and recommendation algorithms to match users’ needs to relevant resources, providing: 1) diary entry, 2) calendar and weekly digest, 3)
sentiment analysis, and 4) recommendations.
2) Calendar and Weekly Digests
The calendar shows users the entries
posted, providing an overview of their
sentiment throughout time and allowing
users to reflect on their previous days to
raise awareness, and encourage them to
seek for external help if needed.
To aid with habit formation, the
visualization of the entries gives users a
sense of accomplishment. Users can opt
to receive weekly digests via email or
using WriteMind, including a breakdown
of their week and recommended
resources.
3) Sentiment Analysis
The text analysis on the diary entry
serves to assess the affective state of the
user, based on the words used and the
sentiments expressed. Sentiment
analysis seeks for subjective assessment
of users’ emotions, and helps to monitor
their variation along time.
An emoticon is presented when users
complete their posts enabling them to
reflect on their feelings raising their
awareness. The calendar view includes
all the sentiments registered for prior
posts.
1) Diary Entry
Analogously to a white page of a
notebook, the diary entry allows users to
write about their routines and feelings. A
prompt message is initially presented on
the interface (’How is your day going?’).
Once the text is posted, it is analyzed
and a sentiment score calculated.
Keywords are used to show relevant
recommendations matching users’ needs,
for instance if the caregiver is seeking for
assisted living facilities, a list of potential
services is provided.
4) Resource Recommendation
Based on the needs that users express
in a post, relevant products and
services is presented. The advice is fed
by an intelligent recommendation
system that match keywords to
recommendations. It is up to the
caregiver to access and use the
recommendation as relevant.
Recommendations include products,
services, and social support, such as:
housing and wellness services,
hospices, groceries, transportation,
mental health, faith, community and
social groups
Motivations