A Promising Approach to Detect Signs of Apathy from a Single Tri-axial Accelerometer

Apathy is a common symptom observed in older adults who are experiencing depression. It is outlined by a lack of motivation and emotional responsiveness, and can lead to social withdrawal and reduced physical activity. In this paper, we propose an approach to detect signs of apathy using a single tri-axial accelerometer worn on the wrist during daily routine. Explicitly, a set of features is extracted from the acceleration signals to represent the subject's apathetic character. Experimental results show that our method is perfectly capable of distinguishing depressed elderly people from healthy individuals, while recognizing apathetic subjects with an accuracy of over 93%.