An Assistive Navigation System Based on Augmented Reality and Context Awareness for People With Mild Cognitive Impairments

This paper presents a system for supplying spatial orientation and support to cognitively impaired people in their daily activities. The system is a technological solution based on external aid at a practical level (substitution-based rehabilitation). In particular, we propose a model focused on points of interest or well-known places, in which user-friendly routes to a destination are generated based on the user context rather than the conventional street names and quantitative distances. Moreover, the system offers augmented reality views that include contextual information. This philosophy of navigation more closely matches the needs of the user than do conventional navigation systems; the proposal is especially useful for users who are not accustomed to using new technologies (e.g., elderly people), people experiencing disorientation and, more generally, individuals with a slight cognitive deficit. The system also includes an application that allows the relatives of the user to establish tasks that must be performed at a specific location and to monitor the activities of the user to detect potentially risky situations.