G-HOPE

 

G-HOPE (G - Helping Old People Easily) is a Group Project for CS 6361 Requirement Engineering developed by the Students of University of Texas at Dallas for the term Spring 2011.

  
   Project Summary

 

The Problem

As people get older, they tend to experience difficulties with hearing, speaking, vision and memory loss. The daily activities like washing,taking a bath,going to the restroom,eating,drinking,walking,transferring to the bed are the typical activities that are of concern to them and they often have to call or communicate to the people around them for fulfilling these.

 

The Solution

Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) is a branch of study to assist or help people with communication difficulties. It comprises of many techniques including sign language, gestures, visual aids, pictures, symbols, text-to-speech electronic communicating devices and so on. It was aimed to help people who only had difficulty in speaking or speaking clearly - to communicate. It has found many potential applications in helping people with development disabilities, speech and hearing disorder, autism, dyslexia, aphasia and so on. The same technique can however, also be modeled for the elderly people who have difficulty in communication. To help the elderly or the disabled having more than just speech disorder, it is necessary to go beyond the current realm of AAC, to identify all the physical and mental disorders and provide a means or a way of alleviating them.

With so many devices like communication boards, hearing aids, etc. which not only prove costly but are also bulky and difficult to use( not to mention their bad aesthetic appeal), the users have been looking for a better solution. The recent advent of mobile communication and a whole new market of mobile applications make the use of new generation touch screen cellular phones, an excellent platform for hosting such an application. It claims to be a cheap and yet an .easy to carry and use. solution. This project is intended for helping the elderly population suffering from communication difficulties like lack of hearing, speech impairment, unclear speech, low vision, weak memory etc. to communicate in a better manner. So, it expands from the initial definition of AAC which is to deal with speech disorder, and takes into consideration the elderly or the disabled who suffer from speech, hearing, memory and/or vision impairment up to varying degrees.