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A growing social problem in the U.S., and elsewhere, is supporting older adults who want to continue living independently, as opposed to moving to an institutional care setting. One key part of this complex problem is providing awareness of senior adults day-to-day activities, promoting peace of mind for extended family members. In this paper, we introduce the concept of a digital family portrait that provides qualitative visualizations of a family members daily life. Leveraging a familiar household object, the picture frame, our design populates the frame with iconic imagery summarizing 28 days. In a final implementation, the digital family portrait would gather information from sensors in the home.
Mynatt et al. (2001) studied this question.