scholarly journals Co-Designing Ambient Assisted Living (AAL) Environments: Unravelling the Situated Context of Informal Dementia Care

2015 ◽  
Vol 2015 ◽  
pp. 1-12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amy S. Hwang ◽  
Khai N. Truong ◽  
Jill I. Cameron ◽  
Eva Lindqvist ◽  
Louise Nygård ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Pervasive Computing ◽  
Assisted Living ◽  
Participatory Design ◽  
Ambient Assisted Living ◽  
System Support ◽  
Care Experience ◽  
Everyday Activities ◽  
Age In Place ◽  
Care Partners ◽  
Do It Yourself

Ambient assisted living (AAL) aims to help older persons “age-in-place” and manage everyday activities using intelligent and pervasive computing technology. AAL research, however, has yet to explore how AAL might support or collaborate with informal care partners (ICPs), such as relatives and friends, who play important roles in the lives and care of persons with dementia (PwDs). In a multiphase codesign process with six (6) ICPs, we envisioned how AAL could be situated to complement their care. We used our codesigned “caregiver interface” artefacts astriggersto facilitate envisioning of AAL support and unpack the situated, idiosyncratic context within which AAL aims to assist. Our findings suggest that AAL should be designed to support ICPs in fashioning “do-it-yourself” solutions that complement tacitly improvised care strategies and enable them to try, observe, and adapt to solutions over time. In this way, an ICP could decide which activities to entrust to AAL support, when (i.e., scheduled or spontaneous) and how a system should provide support (i.e., using personalized prompts based on care experience), and when adaptations to system support are needed (i.e., based alerting patterns and queried reports). Future longitudinal work employing participatory, design-oriented methods with care dyads is encouraged.

scholarly journals Prioritizing supports and services to help older adults age in place: A Delphi study comparing the perspectives of family/friend care partners and healthcare stakeholders

PLoS ONE ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (11) ◽  
pp. e0259387
Author(s):  
Megan Campbell ◽  
Tara Stewart ◽  
Thekla Brunkert ◽  
Heather Campbell-Enns ◽  
Andrea Gruneir ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Affordable Housing ◽  
Assisted Living ◽  
Delphi Study ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Adult Care ◽  
Community Based ◽  
Sustainable Solutions ◽  
Age In Place ◽  
Care Partners

Background Aging in place (AIP) is a policy strategy designed to help older adults remain in their community. While planners internationally have modified aspects of the older adult care continuum (e.g., home care, assisted living, nursing homes) to facilitate AIP, further improvements to community-based supports and services are also required. This study compared and constrasted the community-based factors (e.g., supports, services and personal strategies or characteristics) that family/friend care partners and healthcare stakeholders (i.e., planners/providers) view as most important to help older adults successfully AIP. Methods An initial list of factors shown to influence AIP was created from the academic literature. These factors were used to develop a Delphi survey implemented separately on care partners and healthcare stakeholders. Respondents rated the importance of each factor using a 10-point Likert Scale (1 = not important; 10 = absolutely critical). Consensus in each group was defined when at least 80% of participants scored a factor ≥8 (“very important”), with an interquartile range ≤2. Respondents suggested additional factors during Delphi round one. Results Care partners (N = 25) and healthcare stakeholders (N = 36) completed two and three Delphi rounds, respectively. These groups independently agreed that the following 3 (out of 27) factors were very important to help older adults age in place: keeping one’s home safe, maintaining strong inter-personal relationships, and coordinating care across formal providers. While healthcare stakeholders did not reach consensus on other factors, care partners agreed that 7 additional factors (e.g., access to affordable housing, having mental health programs) were important for AIP. Conclusions Compared to healthcare stakeholders, care partners felt that more and diverse community-based factors are important to support older adults to successfully AIP. Future research should replicate these findings in other jurisdictions, examine the availability and accessibility of the priority factors, and develop sustainable solutions to enhance their effectiveness.

scholarly journals IoT/Sensor-Based Infrastructures Promoting a Sense of Home, Independent Living, Comfort and Wellness

Sensors ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
pp. 485 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joan Cahill ◽  
Raul Portales ◽  
Sean McLoughin ◽  
Nithia Nagan ◽  
Braden Henrichs ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Quality Of Life ◽  
Assisted Living ◽  
Independent Living ◽  
Participatory Design ◽  
Care Delivery ◽  
Ambient Assisted Living ◽  
Residential Setting ◽  
Human Machine Interaction ◽  
Resident Wellness

This paper presents the results of three interrelated studies concerning the specification and implementation of ambient assisted living (AAL)/Internet of Things (IoT)/sensor-based infrastructures, to support resident wellness and person-centered care delivery, in a residential care context. Overall, the paper reports on the emerging wellness management concept and IoT solution. The three studies adopt a stakeholder evaluation approach to requirements elicitation and solution design. Human factors research combines several qualitative human–machine interaction (HMI) design frameworks/methods, including realist ethnography, process mapping, persona-based design, and participatory design. Software development activities are underpinned by SCRUM/AGILE frameworks. Three structuring principles underpin the resident’s lived experience and the proposed ‘sensing’ framework. This includes (1) resident wellness, (2) the resident’s environment (i.e., room and broader social spaces which constitute ‘home’ for the resident), and (3) care delivery. The promotion of resident wellness, autonomy, quality of life and social participation depends on adequate monitoring and evaluation of information pertaining to (1), (2) and (3). Furthermore, the application of ambient assisted living technology in a residential setting depends on a clear definition of related care delivery processes and allied social and interpersonal communications. It is argued that independence (and quality of life for older adults) is linked to technology that enables interdependence, and specifically technology that supports social communication between key roles including residents, caregivers, and family members.

scholarly journals AAL Middleware Infrastructure for Green Bed Activity Monitoring

2013 ◽  
Vol 2013 ◽  
pp. 1-15 ◽  
Author(s):  
Filippo Palumbo ◽  
Paolo Barsocchi ◽  
Francesco Furfari ◽  
Erina Ferro
Keyword(s):  
Pervasive Computing ◽  
Assisted Living ◽  
Ambient Assisted Living ◽  
Signal Strength ◽  
General Purpose ◽  
Wireless Sensor ◽  
Sleep Monitoring ◽  
Sensor Devices ◽  
Service Oriented ◽  
Computing Environments

This paper describes a service-oriented middleware platform for ambient assisted living and its use in two different bed activity services: bedsore prevention and sleeping monitoring. A detailed description of the middleware platform, its elements and interfaces, as well as a service that is able to classify some typical user's positions in the bed is presented. Wireless sensor networks are supposed to be widely deployed in indoor settings and on people's bodies in tomorrow's pervasive computing environments. The key idea of this work is to leverage their presence by collecting the received signal strength measured among fixed general-purpose wireless sensor devices, deployed in the environment, and wearable ones. The RSS measurements are used to classify a set of user's positions in the bed, monitoring the activities of the user, and thus supporting the bedsores and the sleep monitoring issues. Moreover, the proposed services are able to decrease the energy consumption by exploiting the context information coming from the proposed middleware.

scholarly journals Social acceptance of serious games for physical and cognitive training in older adults residing in ambient assisted living environments

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philipp Brauner ◽  
Martina Ziefle
Keyword(s):  
Technology Acceptance ◽  
Assisted Living ◽  
Serious Games ◽  
Participatory Design ◽  
Social Acceptance ◽  
Age Groups ◽  
Ambient Assisted Living ◽  
Empirical Evaluation ◽  
Intention To Use ◽  
Negative Effects

Abstract Aims Although ambient assisted living (AAL) environments and serious games for healthcare have been proposed as solutions to meet the changing demographics, the two approaches are rarely combined. We present the development and empirical evaluation of two serious games for healthcare in AAL. The first uses a cooking scenario for training of cognitive functioning. The latter uses a gardening scenario and motion capture for training agility and endurance. As the frequent lack of social acceptance is a major challenge in consumer health technology, we integrated methods of technology acceptance research by means of the UTAUT2-model and intention to use into the evaluation. Subject and methods We developed both games utilizing user-centered and participatory design methods ranging from low-fidelity paper prototypes to usability and acceptance evaluations of functional prototypes. In the final evaluation, each game prototype was evaluated by 64 participants form different age groups. Results The results show that although performance decreases with age, the performance attained in the games is not decisive for social acceptance measured as intention to use. However, user diversity factors shape the evaluation of the games, and older people and people with low technical competence are in danger of being excluded from using serious games for healthcare. Conclusion Exercise games, if designed right, can mitigate the negative effects of demographic change. Nevertheless, user diversity needs must be considered to ensure that the games are usable and used by a broad audience. The article concludes with guidelines and open research questions for the design of serious games in AAL environments.

Fostering User Participation in Ambient Assisted Living Projects

2012 ◽  
pp. 179-195
Author(s):  
J. Artur Serrano
Keyword(s):  
Assisted Living ◽  
Participatory Design ◽  
Technology Development ◽  
Ambient Assisted Living ◽  
Healthcare Services ◽  
User Participation ◽  
Effective Strategy ◽  
Ubiquitous Healthcare ◽  
European Projects ◽  
Living Area

Participatory design has been widely accepted as an effective strategy for understanding and including users’ needs in technology development. But the successful integration of user participation depends on the way it is carried out, that is, when and how are the users involved in the process, how are the users’ needs and requirements transferred to the technologists, and how is it verified that these requirements have been satisfied in the developed prototypes? These questions can be summarized as, how can one make the users’ voice heard across the development of complex ubiquitous healthcare services? Finding adequate answers to these questions normally is complex due to the challenges that arise when using new and untested technology, as is the case of ubiquitous healthcare services. This paper will present answers to such questions from experience gathered during European projects in the AAL (Ambient Assisted Living) area, in which qualified specialists collaborate to provide a pool of competences that are vital in guaranteeing the success of ubiquitous healthcare services.

The Pursuit of Flow in the Design of Rehabilitation Systems for Ambient Assisted Living

2012 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 54-65 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anthea M. Middleton ◽  
Tomas E. Ward
Keyword(s):  
Pervasive Computing ◽  
Assisted Living ◽  
Skill Training ◽  
Ambient Assisted Living ◽  
Medical Rehabilitation ◽  
Current Survey ◽  
Full Immersion ◽  
Psychological Sense ◽  
Control Feedback ◽  
Evaluation Techniques

This review paper gathers together the key sources on the science of engagement and immersion, in particular the concept of flow. Flow is a psychological description for full immersion in an activity. It provides a useful framework within which to understand the coupling between pervasive computing and end users. The article discusses the concept of flow in a general psychological sense and extracts those features relevant to gaming, and in particular the human-computer interaction (HCI) aspect of such systems. The requirements for achieving flow such as reward, situational control, feedback and clarity of purpose as applicable to a pervasive computing environment are discussed in detail. The primary application focus of flow in this paper lies in the area of ambient-assisted living solutions for rehabilitation purposes. In the context of using virtual environments to aid in skill training or medical rehabilitation, dynamic difficulty adjustment (DDA) and enjoyment are two key elements used to create a fully immersive experience. This paper both reviews the techniques for creating these elements and describes possibilities for harnessing related methods as evaluation techniques for immersion in HCI-based rehabilitation environments, which may offer an alternative to current survey-based mechanisms.

Fostering User Participation in Ambient Assisted Living Projects

2010 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 36-50 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Artur Serrano
Keyword(s):  
Assisted Living ◽  
Participatory Design ◽  
Technology Development ◽  
Ambient Assisted Living ◽  
Healthcare Services ◽  
User Participation ◽  
Effective Strategy ◽  
Ubiquitous Healthcare ◽  
European Projects ◽  
Living Area

Participatory design has been widely accepted as an effective strategy for understanding and including users’ needs in technology development. But the successful integration of user participation depends on the way it is carried out, that is, when and how are the users involved in the process, how are the users’ needs and requirements transferred to the technologists, and how is it verified that these requirements have been satisfied in the developed prototypes? These questions can be summarized as, how can one make the users’ voice heard across the development of complex ubiquitous healthcare services? Finding adequate answers to these questions normally is complex due to the challenges that arise when using new and untested technology, as is the case of ubiquitous healthcare services. This paper will present answers to such questions from experience gathered during European projects in the AAL (Ambient Assisted Living) area, in which qualified specialists collaborate to provide a pool of competences that are vital in guaranteeing the success of ubiquitous healthcare services.

“It’s Going to be Different for Everyone”: Negotiating Quality of Life and Care Priorities Within Care Convoys

2021 ◽  
pp. 089826432110523
Author(s):  
Elisabeth O. Burgess ◽  
Candace L. Kemp ◽  
Alexis A. Bender
Keyword(s):  
Quality Of Life ◽  
Assisted Living ◽  
Qualitative Data ◽  
Quality Care ◽  
Theory Analysis ◽  
Multiple Viewpoints ◽  
Age In Place ◽  
Care Partners ◽  
Working Out

Objective: The overall goal of this analysis was to learn about residents’ quality of life and quality of care in assisted living over time and from multiple viewpoints within support networks. Method: This grounded theory analysis examined qualitative data collected from 50 residents and 169 of their care network members followed over two consecutive 2-year periods in 8 diverse settings. Results: Quality involved a dynamic process of “negotiating priorities,” which refers to working out what is most important for residents’ quality of life and care. Resident and care partner priorities were not always consistent or shared, in part because quality is personal, subjective, dynamic, and situational. Discussion: Communication and collaboration among formal and informal care partners are vital to residents’ ability to age in place with a high quality of life and quality care.

Ambient Assisted Living Systems: The Scope of Research and Development

2017 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 21
Author(s):  
Ashish D Patel ◽  
Jigarkumar H. Shah
Keyword(s):  
Assisted Living ◽  
Independent Living ◽  
Intelligent Systems ◽  
New Technologies ◽  
Ambient Assisted Living ◽  
Smart Devices ◽  
Economic Changes ◽  
Aged Population ◽  
The People ◽  
Living Person

The aged population of the world is increasing by a large factor due to the availability of medical and other facilities. As the number grows rapidly, requirements of this segment of age (65+) are increasing rapidly as well as the percentage of aged persons living alone is also increasing with the same rate due to the inevitable socio-economic changes. This situation demands the solution of many problems like loneliness, chronic conditions, social interaction, transportation, day-to-day life and many more for independent living person. A large part of aged population may not be able to interact directly with new technologies. This sought some serious development towards the use of intelligent systems i.e. smart devices which helps the people with their inability to use the available as well future solutions. Ambient Assisted Living (AAL) is the answer to these problems. In this paper, issues related to AAL systems are studied. Study of challenges and limitations of this comparatively new field will help the designers to remove the barriers of AAL systems.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document