Communication Needs of Elderly at Risk of Falls and their Remote Family

The aging population experiences increased health risks, both physical and emotional. Two such risks are those of isolation and falling. This papers draws from HCI literature in these two independent research areas to explore the needs of family communication with elderly parents at risk of falls. We report on a study with 7 elderly parents and 3 of adult children, as well as a group interview with 12 elderly living in a sheltered accommodation. Findings indicate important emotional needs on both parts: adult children’s anxiety for the wellbeing of their parents at risk of falls, and elderly’s need for autonomy and their appreciation for an aesthetic design. We concluded with implications of these findings for designing for family communication in this challenging context

The Ethical Implications of Personal Health Monitoring

Personal Health Monitoring (PHM) uses electronic devices which monitor and record health-related data outside a hospital, usually within the home. This paper examines the ethical issues raised by PHM. Eight themes describing the ethical implications of PHM are identified through a review of 68 academic articles concerning PHM. The identified themes include privacy, autonomy, obtrusiveness and visibility, stigma and identity, medicalisation, social isolation, delivery of care, and safety and technological need. The issues around each of these are discussed. The system / lifeworld perspective of Habermas is applied to develop an understanding of the role of PHMs as mediators of communication between the institutional and the domestic environment. Furthermore, links are established between the ethical issues to demonstrate that the ethics of PHM involves a complex network of ethical interactions. The paper extends the discussion of the critical effect PHMs have on the patient’s identity and concludes that a holistic understanding of the ethical issues surrounding PHMs will help both researchers and practitioners in developing effective PHM implementations

Evaluation of a Pervasive Game for Domestic Energy Engagement Among Teenagers

In this article, we present Power Agent—a pervasive game designed to encourage teenagers and their families to reduce energy consumption in the home. The ideas behind this mobile phonebased game are twofold; to transform the home environment and its devices into a learning arena for hands-on experience with electricity usage and to promote engagement via a team competition scheme. We report on the game’s evaluation with six teenagers and their families who played the game for ten days in two cities in Sweden. Data collection consisted of home energy measurements before, during, and after a game trial, in addition to interviews with participants at the end of the evaluation. The results suggest that the game concept was highly efficient in motivating and engaging the players and their families to change their daily energy-consumption patterns during the game trial. Although the evaluation does not permit any conclusions as to whether the game had any postgame effects on behavior, we can conclude that the pervasive persuasive game approach appears to be highly promising in regard to energy conservation and similar fields or issues

Ambient awareness: From random noise to digital closeness in online social networks

AbstractAmbient awareness refers to the awareness social media users develop of their online network in result of being constantly exposed to social information, such as microblogging updates. Although each individual bit of information can seem like random noise, their incessant reception can amass to a coherent representation of social others. Despite its growing popularity and important implications for social media research, ambient awareness on public social media has not been studied empirically. We provide evidence for the occurrence of ambient awareness and examine key questions related to its content and functions. A diverse sample of participants reported experiencing awareness, both as a general feeling towards their network as a whole, and as knowledge of individual members of the network, whom they had not met in real life. Our results indicate that ambient awareness can develop peripherally, from fragmented information and in the relative absence of extensive one-to-one communication. We report the effects of demographics, media use, and network variables and discuss the implications of ambient awareness for relational and informational processes online

Information and Communication Technologies for the Activities of Daily Living in Older Patients with Dementia: A Systematic Review

Background: Significant innovations have been introduced in recent years in the application of information and communication technologies (ICTs) to support healthcare for patients with dementia. Objective: In the present systematic review, our goal is to keep track of ICT concepts and approaches to support the range of activities of daily living for people with dementia and to provide a snapshot of the effect that technology is having on patients' self-reliance. Methods: We reviewed the literature and identified systematic reviews of cohort studies and other authoritative reports. Our selection criteria included: (1) activities of daily living, (2) ICT, and (3) dementia. Results: We identified 56 studies published between 2000 and 2015, of which 26 met inclusion criteria. The present systematic review revealed many ICT systems that could purportedly support the range of activities of daily living for patients with dementia. The results showed five research bodies: 1) technologies used by patients with dementia, 2) technologies used by caregivers, 3) monitoring systems, 4) ambient assistive living with ICTs, and 5) tracking and wayfinding. Conclusions: There is a potential for ICTs to support dementia care at home and to improve quality of life for caregivers, reducing healthcare costs and premature institutional care for these patients

Feasibility and effectiveness of a pilot outreach smoking cessation programme at smoking hotspots in Hong Kong

Parallel Session II: Prevention of Non-communicable DiseasesSince the enforcement of the smokefree legislation in 2007, more smokers have been gathering near some public rubbish bins at outdoor bus stops, outside office buildings and shopping malls to smoke. These “hotspots” provided an opportunity of publicizing and providing smoking cessation services to a large number of smokers and motivate them to quit. We aimed to promote smoking cessation at smoking hotspots and evaluate the feasibility and effectiveness of a pilot outreach approach. Out of the 26 smoking hotspots near shopping malls and commercial buildings, 10 hotspots with the great number of smokers were selected for the intervention from February to August 2009. Trained smoking cessation counsellors disseminated 2-page promotional leaflets and proactively delivered brief smoking cessation counselling (less than 5 minutes for each smoker) to smokers for 4 hours at each hotspot. We evaluated the programme by counting of smokers non-smokers 1 week before and 1 week after the intervention. We observed the smokers’ responses and behaviours when they were approached by the counsellors. In the observed 1,237 smokers at the 10 hotspots, the counsellors approached 751 (60.7%) smokers. 419 (55.8%) read or kept the promotional leaflets. 413 (55.0%) were willing to receive the brief on-site counselling. The intervention reduced the number of smokers at the hotspots by 7.8% (pre: 1,251, post: 1,154)) with 2.1% increase in non-smokers (pre: 5,004, post: 5,108). The proportion of smokers at hotspots reduced by 1.6% (95%CI 0.04%-3.1%, p=0.053) comparing 1 week before and after the intervention, whereas there was no significant difference in non-smokers (risk difference=1.6%, 95%CI -1.6%-4.7%, p=0.40). The outreach programme had a slightly positive impact to reduce the proportion of smokers at hotspots. The smoking hotpots are good locations for feasible and effective delivery of smoking cessation messages. Improvement in the approaching skills and incentives are needed.postprin

Ethical issues in the use of surveillance cameras to support ageing in place

Background and Objective: Surveillance technology allows family members to monitor older adults’ daily activities and their interaction with the home environment. In particular, video surveillance cameras and surveillance technology’s implementation raises critical ethical concerns due to their invasive and obtrusive nature. Thus, this paper aims to address the ethical issues regarding the use of video surveillance for older adults to age in place. Methods: A literature review is conducted using Springerlink, Sciencedirect, and PubMed Publications related to older adults’ care, ageing in place, and the use of surveillance technologies were included in this project. Results: A total of 19 publications met the inclusion criteria. Nine ethical issues emerged from the data: informed consent, privacy, conflict of interest, stigmatization and obtrusiveness, homogeneity among older adults, and imbalance relationship. These nine themes were further explored in respect to ethical principles, including autonomy, beneficence, non-maleficence, justice and fidelity) Conclusion: Although surveillance cameras can be invasive, well-grounded ethical thinking and proactive response help reduce the risk and ethical challenges associated with it. By examining the ethical issue in video surveillance, it helps to reflect and enhance the current legislation

Future directions for ICT in aphasia therapy for older adults: enhancing current practices through interdisciplinary perspectives

Growing numbers of older adults requiring aphasia therapy create challenges for the health care system. Information and communication technology (ICT) has the potential to provide computer-mediated, self-administered aphasia therapy that complements conventional therapy. We explore overlaps in ICT for older adults and aphasia therapy applications with the goal of integrating innovative ICT in aphasia therapy. Based on a case study, we explain how results of different disciplines developing ICT for older adults can be transferred in order to better support older adults with aphasia. We conclude with future directions for ICT in aphasia therapy by surveying interdisciplinary approaches that integrate best practices from conventional therapy, interface design, tracking technologies, user modelling, adaptation algorithms, playful design, user empowerment, and community interaction

The State of the Sustainable Development Goals in the United States

President Biden entered office in January 2021 with the promise to end the COVID-19 pandemic and facilitate an economic transformation to "build a better America." But what, exactly, does "better" mean? Answering that question in specific ways means establishing explicit benchmarks for progress, analyzing current trends, and identifying their impact and on whom.The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) can help with the answer. These 17 comprehensive, interconnected goals offer a set of metrics and evidence to better understand where the U.S. is on a set of critical economic, social, and environmental dimensions, and how far it needs to go in its quest to build a better America