Designing audio-enhanced paper photos for older adult emotional wellbeing in communication therapy

This article introduces audio-enhanced paper photos enabled by digital pen technology as an interaction paradigm for supporting and understanding emotional wellbeing in late adulthood, particularly in the context of communication therapy activities and related social interactions. We describe the development of a multimodal pen-based system that enables creation of audio-enhanced paper photos and the application of this technology to two domains: older adults with aphasia working to regain expressive and receptive language after a stroke, and older adults wanting to interact with a family member of advanced age with memory loss. Our pen-based authoring software enables caregivers, both therapists and family members, to create audio-enhanced paper photos to encourage meaningful and emotionally appropriate interaction with the older adults they support. We examine the ways in which emotional information is embedded in audio-enhanced photos and how this approach addresses various aspects of emotional wellbeing in late adulthood.