Mobility Assessment Using Event-Related Responses

The continuous assessment of mobility and speed of processing is an important component underlying physical and cognitive functions. We propose a novel approach to measure mobility, e.g. speed of walking and possibly speed of processing by unobtrusive monitoring of elders response times to specific events. The particular application investigated is response times to telephone ring. A key idea put forth in this paper is that if the elders' location distribution is stable over time, response times can be used to assess the "instantaneous" speed of walking. The feasibility of this approach is illustrated using data collected in a study performed by Intel in homes of several subjects