When I first started my social robotics project last year I had never heard of the phrase “medication adherence”. At the time I had something I wanted to build and launched into it. It wasn’t until a conversation I had with my doctor about what I was working on that he asked if I was forgetting to take my medication or if I had any “adherence” problems. After reassuring him that...
Mozilla’s Common Voice
Common Voice is Mozilla’s campaign to build an open-source voice dataset filled with diverse voice data (over 40 different languages and counting) that’s accessible to everyone. The hope is that with easy access to better data, better voice related technology can be built. Mozilla currently use the Common Voice dataset to help train the language models for their open-source Speech-To...
TWIML #316 – Bridging the Patient-Physician Gap with ML and Expert Systems
Episode #316 of the TWIML AI Podcast is with Xavier Amatriain, Co-founder and CTO of Curai. They discussed the use of Curai’s machine learning models to help improve and augment primary care ultimately resulting in less workload for doctors. Xavier claims their models are as good or better than the “average doctor”. Curai use expert systems for medical data and knowledge...
George Laurer – Barcodes
George Laurer died on Tuesday (10/12/2019). He was the co-inventor of the barcode. Hundreds of millions of people probably use barcodes every single day – groceries, deliveries, medicine, hardware etc – without giving them a second thought. The barcode was the 6th episode in a great series called “50 things That Made The Modern Economy”. Barcodes seem so trivial these days...
Post Appointment
This is the 4th part of my social robotics project investigating ways to help manage Crohn’s Disease. Inspiration “What would it be like to have a robot check up on me after my doctor’s appointment?” It made me chuckle at first. Then I quickly realised I had most of the functionality already written so I thought why not! Nobody really likes going to the doctor. I certainly...
Shall We Play A Game?
Following on from the appointment reminder functionality this is the third part of my Social Robotics and Crohn’s Disease project. (Did you recognize where “Shall we play a game?” comes from? Here’s the answer) Inspiration I wanted to investigate the potential for creating more interactivity and make some use out of my own medical data. When I first read about the...
Social Robots
In the late 90s and into the early 2000s there was a growth in popularity of consumer robotics. Robotic pets like Sony’s Aibo, Sega Toys’ Poo-chi, or Tiger Electronic’s Furby. Medical robots like PETS Robots for paediatric rehabilitation, NurseBot for assisting elderly patients or Roball as a potential educational tool for autistic children. Honda’s ASIMO and NASA’s...
Appointment Reminder
This is the second part of my Social Robotics and Crohn’s Disease project. Inspiration When things are going bad with Crohn’s Disease it is tough to stay on top of things. When my doctor asks me questions like “Did we sort out your vaccinations for the year?” I want to be able to answer that question. I think it’s very important to be aware of my treatment so I...
Me and My Crohn’s
Just the two of us… If you’d like to read an excellent medical summary of Inflammatory Bowel Disease IBDNewsToday.com have one here. It may sound bizarre but I was genuinely relieved when I was finally diagnosed with Crohn’s Disease. I hadn’t felt “right” physically or mentally for a very long time. I would go to doctors but only ever felt like I was patched up...
PillBot – using a social robot to help manage Crohn’s Disease
Update: This is Part 1 in a series of personal projects investigating the use of a Social Robot (and in future other assistive technologies) to help manage Crohn’s Disease. Please consider making a donation to the Irish Society for Colitis and Crohn’s Disease. To anyone from Anki who might happen to read this: I was genuinely sad to hear about the company going out of business. I hope...