Portale SIVA sulle tecnologie per la disabilità e l'autonomia Portale SIVA sulle tecnologie per la disabilità e l'autonomia Don Carlo Gnocchi Onlus Foundation

ASPREX (Assistive Product Explorer)

Record number: 556
Last update: October 2025
Type of document: Projects
Funding body: ASPREX International Working Group
Partners: EASTIN (The Global Assistive Technology Information Network)
Year of publication: 2025
Project start date: 12/02/2020
Project end date: 24/12/2021
Project state: Ended
F.d.G. Team:
Abstract:
The ASPREX project (Assistive Product Explorer) investigated the feasibility of a machine-reasoning system to help identify the assistive products that can best meet the individual needs by considering each person’s goals, circumstances, type of difficulties, level of ability, and life environment. The project was conducted by the World Health Organization (WHO) in 2020-2021 under its Global Cooperation on Assistive Technology (GATE) initiative. The assumption was that such a system - if well designed and driven by reliable data - could greatly favor informed and responsible choices of assistive products, and could potentially be used by both service providers and end users to support product selection. The project led to the development of an AI-based prototype called "Assistive Product Explorer" (ASPREX). Within the ASPREX project, an innovative model was developed to represent knowledge about assistive products. Based on this model, a knowledge base was generated for the ASPREX system, including over 2400 knowledge rules related to 65 product categories belonging to WHO’s Priority Assistive Product List (APL). The knowledge base was developed by 6 consultants with expertise in the provision of assistive products who were engaged by WHO for this task. A template was first created and then populated by one or two consultants with expertise in the product area. The knowledge base did not undergo any further review or validation process. The knowledge base can be also read as a set of fact-sheets that can be useful in clinical practice and for educational purposes. Each product fact-sheet is composed of 14 chapters (each related to a knowledge-rule cluster as established by the model): 1)product identification data and overall description; 2)possible configuration variants; 3) optional components; 4) product goals; 5) indicated and 6) contraindicated impairments; 7) indicated and 8) contraindicated environments; 9) other indicated and 10) contraindicated factors; points to consider in 11) selection, 12) fitting, 13) use and 14) maintenance/follow-up. All the fact sheets are available for download from the SIVA and the EASTIN Web Portals. This document includes all Fact Sheets produced within the project.
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