OUR PROJECT

At a Glance

People with diabetes have blood sugar (glucose) levels higher than normal, i.e., hyperglycemia. Diabetes is a very common disease.

Type 2 diabetes usually occurs in adulthood and is associated with overweight and lack of physical activity.

Hyperglycemia sustained for weeks and months can cause health complications, such as heart, kidney and eye diseases. People with uncontrolled type 2 diabetes tend to live fewer years.

Controlling high blood sugar in type 2 diabetes is achieved through a balanced diet, regular physical activity and, often, medication use. Diabetes is a chronic disease and therefore treatment is for life.

It is not always easy for people with type 2 diabetes to take care of themselves on a daily basis. It has been shown that less than half of the people type 2 diabetes achieve target levels for blood sugar, frequently because of difficulties in following recommendations about diet, physical activity and medication-taking. It is very important to help these people improving the way they care for themselves.

Several technological interventions have been studied in this respect. These interventions resort, for example, to text messages to mobile phones or websites. One of the advantages is that they can be automated, not depending on the availability of healthcare professionals; another advantage is convenience – they can be used anytime and without the need for people to move away from their homes.

Virtual humans are computer artifacts researched and developed to assist people with chronic diseases to change and sustain self-care behaviours. These virtual assistants are designed to establish long-term relationship with users. They have shown good results in promoting health or controlling other chronic diseases, even in older people, less familiarised with technology.

Our Objective

The VASelfCare project aims to develop a viable prototype of a relational agent software to assist older adults with type 2 diabetes in self-care and to test its use in this group.

In this context, a prototype is a software in an early stage of development, used for testing purposes. The prototype forms the basis of potentially optimised versions.

Our Work Programme

VASelfCare pioneered the research and development of a human virtual assistant for older adults with type 2 diabetes, namely through state-of-the-art behaviour change science and usability principles for seniors.

The project was divided into two phases. In the first phase, the software was developed together with older people with type 2 diabetes, health professionals and other experts, as well as published scientific literature and clinical guidelines. Usability tests of the software were performed and adjustments made.

The second phase pertained to software testing over several months by older adults with type 2 diabetes.

Funding covered a period of 26 months, until March 2020; the project is currently in the sustainability and exploitation phase. Funding details can be found here.

Our Working Culture

Over the course of the project we built a cohesive team spirit and a set of procedures, unwritten rules and values about our approach to digital research and development.

We resort to coproduction with users to better meet their needs and optimise the benefits of digital technology.

We advocate students’ involvement in our project and believe it positively impacts education, research and technology.

We draw on the following core values:

• Interdisciplinarity. We recognise that innovation is supported by knowledge from different disciplinary domains and that looking at a problem with varied lenses may shift paradigms;
• Openness. We strive to create an environment where everyone is comfortable to share ideas, views and knowledge contributions;
• Responsibility. We honour our commitments with final users and to each other. We take ownership of our work and are willing to improve it whenever needed;
• Creativity. We look at challenges from different perspectives and embark on a lean approach to generate new solutions;
• Dynamism. We tackle tasks with a sense of strategy and accept that we will learn by doing;
• Proximity. We work closely with end-users and other relevant stakeholders to maximise value generation. We nurture a high-performance team by turning to each other when we need help.

Our Results

Project execution between 03-01-2018 to 05-03-2020 entailed as result indicator an innovative software prototype successfully tested. A second result indicator, not initially envisaged, was a prototype of a web-based dashboard for health professionals, populated by mobile application data.

During this period, the following performance indicators were met:

• 4 international papers published;
• 5 master theses concluded;
• 21 presentations in scientific events;

Check the resources tab for full details on project outputs.

Sustainability and exploitation look at opportunities of maximising the impact through the use of technology and knowledge created by the project. We hope that ultimately the prototype can be matured into a technological solution able to improve control of type 2 diabetes in older people, reducing disease progression and its consequences. The sustainability and exploitation phase includes the development of a web-based self-management education application with the virtual assistant Vitoria.