GoalTrack: Supporting Personalized Goal-Setting in Stroke Rehabilitation with Multimodal Activity Journaling

Abstract

Stroke is the leading cause of disability among adults, with motor impairments being the most significant complication. Stroke rehabilitation is critical for stroke survivors to regain independence in their daily activities. Central to this rehabilitation process is patient-centered goal-setting, a crucial philosophy underpinning personalized programs. However, mismatched expectations between stroke survivors and clinicians often lead to limited engagement from patients, which detracts from patient-centeredness. We envision that stroke survivors who engage in journaling activities can empower themselves to be more proactive, thereby enhancing the goal-setting process. To this end, we iteratively designed and developed GoalTrack, an activity journaling app utilizing voice and touch to support stroke survivors in articulating their rehabilitation goals. Using GoalTrack as a probe, we conducted an in-lab user study with thirteen stroke survivor participants. We present findings on how stroke survivors utilize multimodal input for different data formats, and their perspectives on its accessibility. We also report on how stroke survivors envision activity journaling in the goal-setting process, where our findings suggest that journaling supports articulating personalized rehabilitation goals and fosters enhanced engagement with therapists. We also discuss future avenues of research for designing multimodal interfaces for stroke survivors, and share lessons learned from conducting in-lab studies.