Self Determination-Based Design To Achieve Acceptance of Assisted Living Technologies For Older Adults

Accepted for publication in the journal Computers In Human BehaviorInternational audienceProviding technological support to assist older adults in their daily activities is a promising approach to aging in place. However, acceptance is critical when technologies are embedded in the user's life. Recently, Lee et al. established a connection between acceptance and motivation. They approached motivation via the Self-Determination Theory (SDT): the capacity to make choices and to take decisions. This paper leverages SDT to promote a new design style for gerontechnologies that consists of principles and requirements. We applied our approach to develop an assisted living platform, which was used to conduct a six-month field study with 34 older adults. We show that self-determination is a determining factor of technology acceptance. Furthermore, our platform improved the self-determination of equipped participants, compared to the control group, suggesting that our approach is effective. As such, SDT opens up new opportunities for improving the design process of geron-technologies

Inclusion of elderly users via virtual spaces in the early stages of the innovation process

This article discusses collaborative innovation during the initial stages of firms' innovation processes via virtual spaces, focusing on a specific group: elderly users. These users represent a large and growing consumer market, which entails opportunities for companies developing products and services for elderly individuals. Firms that intend to meet the real needs of elders must involve those individuals in collaborative innovation processes. However, firms face challenges in the technical and interpersonal spheres when basing their early-stage innovation activities on the virtual inclusion of elderly individuals, which has received little attention. Focusing on these challenges, this article presents an exploratory case study employing a participatory action research approach, in which the authors were part of a project aimed at the development of a method of including elderly users via virtual spaces. Pilot implementations helped the innovation intermediary develop an improved method to better capture elderly individuals' inputs. We found that special efforts must be made prior to the virtual activity to familiarize elderly individuals with the technology. Additionally, virtual activity demands a more active role from intermediaries for two reasons: first, representatives from client organizations do not feel confident in leading virtual discussions and second, social hints, emotions and feelings are more difficult to grasp in a virtual space than in real-life interactions, which necessitates more focused and prepared intermediation. Elderly individuals' involvement is driven by their curiosity and desire to learn something new; therefore, the participation of elderly users must be valuable both to the organization's innovation process and to the elderly individuals themselves.publishedVersio

What Characterizes Safety of Ambient Assisted Living Technologies?

Ambient assisted living (AAL) technologies aim at increasing an individual's safety at home by early recognizing risks or events that might otherwise harm the individual. A clear definition of safety in the context of AAL is still missing and facets of safety still have to be shaped. The objective of this paper is to characterize the facets of AAL-related safety, to identify opportunities and challenges of AAL regarding safety and to identify open research issues in this context. Papers reporting aspects of AAL-related safety were selected in a literature search. Out of 395 citations retrieved, 28 studies were included in the current review. Two main facets of safety were identified: user safety and system safety. System safety concerns an AAL system's reliability, correctness and data quality. User safety reflects impact on physical and mental health of an individual. Privacy, data safety and security issues, sensor quality and integration of sensor data, as well as technical failures of sensors and systems are reported challenges. To conclude, there is a research gap regarding methods and metrics for measuring user and system safety in the context of AAL technologies

Digital Companion for Elders in Tracking Health and Intelligent Recommendation Support using Deep Learning

Ambient assisted living (AAL) facilitates the daily routines of elderly people, particularly those who have clinical difficulties or physical limitations. The latest technologies like distributed compuring,internet of things (IoT) and machine learning pave the ground for the creation of an effective automated tracker which aids elder citizens to live independently. The suggested system is attempted to design a wearable that monitors the blood glucose level through sweat. To achieve high accuracy, the proposed system uses ambient sensing and deep learning based techniques. It places a strong emphasis on calculating the health index by taking into account numerous disease-related characteristics or vitals such as heart rate, blood pressure, SpO2, blood glucose level, respiration rate, sweat rate, uric acid, and temperature. From the wearable device designed the vital signs are gathered, further environmental sensors and camera fixed around the person continually monitors the behavioral pattern along with physiological signals. This ensures the improved accuracy of health state prediction from its conventional models in place. The key advantage of this device is that it may be held and operated anyplace without interrupting their day-to-day tasks because the device is to be cheap, reliable and speedy

Smart@home – supporting safety and mobility of elderly and care dependent people in their own homes through the use of technical assistance systems and conventional mobility supporting tools: a cross-sectional survey

Background: The use of technical solutions and conventional mobility supporting aids can support the independence of people into old age in their own homes. However, we found relatively few empirical investigations on the effects and costs of these systems. Methods: The aim of the study was to investigate usability, user satisfaction and the correlation between costs and benefits of different built-in smart home solutions and conventional mobility supporting tools in the home of elderly, partially care-dependent tenants (> 65 years). A cross-sectional survey was conducted from February to March 2018 with tenants of a housing association in apartments equipped with smart home technology and conventional mobility supporting tools. The response rate in the intervention group was n = 37 persons (out of 46 tenants with installed smart home and conventional solutions) and in the control group n = 64 persons (out of 100 tenants without built-in smart home and conventional solutions). Data were collected by a written questionnaire regarding usability and satisfaction of the tenants with the built-in smart home solutions and conventional mobility supporting tools. In addition, both the intervention and the control group were asked general questions about communication, safety and how to deal with the need for long-term care in their own living environment. Results: Results showed that with regard to usability, satisfaction and price performance ratio of the installed smart home solutions, the installation of the corresponding solutions with an overall score of 1.41 (on a scale of 1 (very good) to 6 (unsatisfactory)) was mostly positively evaluated by the tenants. Overall, users rated the installed smart home solutions better than the conventional mobility supporting tools (such as handholds and increased balcony floor level). Conclusions: Analysis of the price performance ratio showed that smart home solutions are generally more expensive than conventional tools, but also contribute significantly to an increased security of the tenants, and thus may enable longer living in a familiar environment. We recommend modularized offers consisting of various components of smart home solutions, since this significantly reduces installation costs and allows for an individual composition according to requirements. Moreover, smart home solutions should be considered to be listed as medical aids

Towards Truly Accessible MOOCs for Persons with Cognitive Disabilities: Design and Field Assessment

International audienceMOOCs are playing an increasingly important role in education systems. Unfortunately, MOOCs are not fully accessible. In this paper, we propose design principles to enhance the accessibility of MOOC players, especially for persons with cognitive disabilities. These principles result from a participatory design process gathering 7 persons with disabilities and 13 expert professionals. They are also inspired by various design approaches (Universal Design for Learning, Instructional Design, Environmental Support). We also detail the creation of a MOOC player offering a set of accessibility features that users can alter according to their needs and capabilities. We used it to teach a MOOC on digital accessibility. Finally, we conducted a field study to assess learning and usability outcomes for persons with cognitive and non-cognitive impairments. Results support the effectiveness of our player for increasing accessibility

Aging with the Internet of Things

International audienceWith capabilities for sensing, analysis, and actuation, the IoT has immense potential to help aging adults maintain health and independence. The Internet of Things (IoT) offers a host of new functionalities for sensing both environments (e.g., through motion-activity sensors) and individuals (e.g., through wearable smart watches) and for analyzing sensed data to make them actionable to users via notifications (e.g., through a smart speaker) and to applications via actuators (e.g., through a light switch). Wireless capability facilitates the deployment and use of such devices in every aspect of life and across age groups. This article explores the potential of the IoT to compensate for age-related changes by helping older individuals achieve and maintain health and independence. We briefly explain the Internet of Things and its relevance to aging, and then illustrate its applicability with a fictional 80-year-old. Although much of the technology exists to support the fictional scenario, there are challenges to the widespread attainment of the IoT's potential. We review these and then focus on the particular challenge of technology acceptance among the elderly, considering particular aspect

HomeAssist: une plateforme d'assistance domiciliaire pour le maintien à domicile basée sur une approche interdisciplinaire

International audienceThis paper presents HomeAssist: an assisted living platform aims to support aging in place. This platform was designed using a human-centered approach. It offers assistive services, addressing the main aspects of daily life: activities of daily living, home and user safety, and social participation. HomeAssist introduces key novel features: (1) it covers multiple aspects of daily life, addressing a variety of needs of older adults; (2) it provides customiza-tion mechanisms, adapting assistance to the user's abilities while preventing autonomy losses; (3) it relies on context awareness, delivering timely assistance; and, (4) it revolves around a unified user interface to achieve usability. All these features play a key role towards achieving high acceptance of HomeAssist and supporting autonomy effectively, as shown by our field study

Concerns and Trade-offs in Information Technology Acceptance: The Balance between the Requirement for Privacy and the Desire for Safety

In this paper, we construct a new motivation model by bridging self-determination theory (SDT) with the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT). Using an explorative approach, we study how human motivational determinants influence the trade-off between safety and privacy in technology acceptance. We take the Scandinavian healthcare context as our empirical outset and explore how older Danish adults perceive sensor-based e-health monitor technology that monitors their health status. Danish municipalities have begun to use these technologies to identify early warning signs and, thereby, improve the quality of care and life by making people more self-reliant and reducing unnecessary hospitalization. However, one needs to consider ethical issues concerning privacy versus safety when implementing these technologies. After monitoring 21 respondents (mean age: 85) living independently at home over nine weeks, we interviewed them about their concerns regarding privacy and safety. We found that the respondents were willing to compromise their privacy if their autonomy and personal integrity were respected and if the benefits of sensor-based monitoring outweighed health-related threats. We used these findings and the theoretical outset to create a novel model that takes human motivation into account when using UTAUT

An Extended TOE Framework for Cybersecurity-adoption Decisions

High-profile cybersecurity incidents, such as the 2019 Capital One data breach and the 2017 Equifax breach, have engendered doubts about firms’ trustworthiness and resulted cybersecurity becoming a critical risk factor firms must address. Breaches can precipitate extreme consequences for affected firms’ managers, shareholders, and customers. Unsurprisingly, data breaches represent IT leaders’ biggest concern. In this paper, we report on a qualitative field study in which we interviewed C-level executives and IT consultants to investigate cybersecurity concerns and factors that influence adoption decisions for cybersecurity. We found that the traditional technology-organization-environment (TOE) framework does not fully capture the range of issues in the cybersecurity context. Thus, we propose a new extended TOE framework that pertains specifically to cybersecurity-adoption decisions. This extended framework includes new dimensions, cyber catalysts, practice standards, and new factors under the traditional technology, organization, and environment dimensions