Abstract

Although Personal Informatics (PI) research continues to expand in the breadth of domains and individual user contexts it covers, there is a paucity of work examining users with motor disabilities. In particular, individuals who sustain a traumatic spinal cord injury (SCI) undergo an abrupt and dramatic change that disrupts their lives and impacts how they might use PI tools [2]. AI-driven systems [9] that mediate consequential sense-making, decision-making, coordination, and many other aspects of personal and social lives can enrich the domain of PI with the utility of interactions, personal preferences, contexts, and goals of this population and empower them with control over their own life and reduced cognitive workload. In this position paper, we discuss opportunities and challenges for using AI-driven personal informatics to support this population. In the US, 17,730 people sustain SCI each year on average [7], and worldwide between 250,000 and 500,000 people acquire an SCI every year [17]. SCIs can occur to anyone, and they are most commonly caused bymotor vehicle accidents, catastrophic falls, or sports injuries [8]; these typically result in loss of physical ability and sensation. In contrast to other progressive reasons for motor disabilities, SCI causes an immediate loss of motor functions and abruptly changes an individual’s life [18]. These traumatic incidents and resulting disabilities can be severe, and can force previously independent people into becoming dependent on others for basic daily activities. Individuals with severe spinal cord injuries (SCI) develop a range of impairments and motor disabilities [2], including limited sensation in hands, arms, elbows, and upper body functions that can necessitate the use of power-operated wheelchairs (PWC). Additionally, they need to adopt several new self-care routines they will need to complete for the rest of their live [1], including pressure relief (PR), respiratory care, bladder and bowel management. They must carry out these self-care routines frequently throughout the day; they are also particularly complex for PWC users, and often require additional assistance. For instance, individuals need to perform between 30 and 50 PRs each day – every 20 minutes – to prevent pressure ulcers. They can perform a PR by changing their sitting position in PWC manually or with the tilt function of the PWC to redistribute the tissue load. Performing this high-frequency self-care activity can be difficult for both social and practical reasons.