Future bathroom: A study of user-centred design principles affecting usability, safety and satisfaction in bathrooms for people living with disabilities

Research and development work relating to assistive technology 2010-11 (Department of Health) Presented to Parliament pursuant to Section 22 of the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act 197

When technology cares for people with dementia:A critical review using neuropsychological rehabilitation as a conceptual framework

Clinicians and researchers have become increasingly interested in the potential of technology in assisting persons with dementia (PwD). However, several issues have emerged in relation to how studies have conceptualized who the main technology user is (PwD/carer), how technology is used (as compensatory, environment modification, monitoring or retraining tool), why it is used (i.e., what impairments and/or disabilities are supported) and what variables have been considered as relevant to support engagement with technology. In this review we adopted a Neuropsychological Rehabilitation perspective to analyse 253 studies reporting on technological solutions for PwD. We analysed purposes/uses, supported impairments and disabilities and how engagement was considered. Findings showed that the most frequent purposes of technology use were compensation and monitoring, supporting orientation, sequencing complex actions and memory impairments in a wide range of activities. The few studies that addressed the issue of engagement with technology considered how the ease of use, social appropriateness, level of personalization, dynamic adaptation and carers' mediation allowed technology to adapt to PWD's and carers' preferences and performance. Conceptual and methodological tools emerged as outcomes of the analytical process, representing an important contribution to understanding the role of technologies to increase PwD's wellbeing and orient future research.University of Huddersfield, under grants URF301-01 and URF506-01

Health Educ Behav

As the segment of the population 65 years of age or older continues to grow, the number of individuals with dementia increases proportionally, highlighting the need to design therapies that meet the social and emotional needs of people with dementia. Information and communication technologies (ICT) are potential venues for supporting the delivery of such therapies, including reminiscence therapy (RT), which is a non-pharmacological intervention involving the prompting of past memories, often with artifacts such as old photographs or music for therapeutic benefits such as the facilitation of social interactions or the increase of self-esteem. This paper systematically examines the scientific literature on the use of ICT for facilitating RT to assess the current state of the evidence and identify future trends. We searched the PubMed (1966-2013), ACM (1954-2013), and PsycINFO (1908-2013) repositories using the keywords dementia and reminiscence. Three hundred eighty-six articles were retrieved, 44 of which met the inclusion and exclusion criteria. Findings of the systematic review include that there are benefits to using ICT for RT interventions. Some of these benefits are access to rich and engaging multimedia reminiscence materials, opportunities for people with dementia to participate in social interactions and take ownership of conversations, and a reduction of barriers due to motor deficits during interactions with media. Future studies should explore the types and content of media beneficial to individuals at different stages of dementia.T15 LM007442/LM/NLM NIH HHS/United StatesU38 HM000454/HM/NCHM CDC HHS/United States2T15LM007442/LM/NLM NIH HHS/United States2016-04-26T00:00:00Z25274711PMC484484

Key issues in rural health: perspectives of health service providers in Queensland

The Centre for Rural and Remote Area Health (CRRAH) held interactive research workshops in eight towns in Southern Queensland. The purpose of the workshops was to determine what health providers considered were major issues affecting their service and for these results to inform future research strategy of CRRAH. Over 150 organisations identified as either providing health services or having a significant interest in health provision in one or more of the targeted towns were invited to attend. The workshops used the nominal group technique to identify what the participants considered were key health issues in the geographical area in which they worked. These issues were then prioritised by the participants. Thematic analysis of the issues generated a ranking of themes by importance. Results were compared with a similar exercise undertaken in 2003. Participants from organisation directly involved with health care were complemented at the workshops by representatives from local government, the police service and church groups. A total of 85 participants representing 47 services and 41 different organisations attended the eight workshops. Issues generated by the participants were pooled into seventeen themes. Workforce issues were by far the major concern of health providers. Recruitment and retention of health workers were a major concern. The other four highest ranked themes across all workshops were mental health, access to health services, perceptions and expectations of consumers of health services and interagency cooperation. Aged care was an additional theme that generated a lot of concern at several of the workshops. The workshops provided important information to CRRAH for developing research strategy. Additionally, several new alliances among health providers were developed which will support sharing of information and resources. The workshops enabled rural and remote organisations to meet and identify the key health issues and supported research planning. Much need alliances among health providers were forged and collaborative research avenues are being explored. The workshop forum is an excellent means of information exchange

Distributed Computing and Monitoring Technologies for Older Patients

This book summarizes various approaches for the automatic detection of health threats to older patients at home living alone. The text begins by briefly describing those who would most benefit from healthcare supervision. The book then summarizes possible scenarios for monitoring an older patient at home, deriving the common functional requirements for monitoring technology. Next, the work identifies the state of the art of technological monitoring approaches that are practically applicable to geriatric patients. A survey is presented on a range of such interdisciplinary fields as smart homes, telemonitoring, ambient intelligence, ambient assisted living, gerontechnology, and aging-in-place technology. The book discusses relevant experimental studies, highlighting the application of sensor fusion, signal processing and machine learning techniques. Finally, the text discusses future challenges, offering a number of suggestions for further research directions

Wearable video monitoring of people with age Dementia : Video indexing at the service of helthcare

International audienceExploration of video surveillance material for healthcare becomes a reality in medical research. In this paper we propose a video monitoring system with wearable cameras for early diagnostics of Dementia. A video acquisition set-up is designed and the methods are developed for indexing the recorded video. The noisiness of audio-visual material and its particularity yield challenging problems for automatic indexing of this content

Social Robots in Hospitals: A Systematic Review

Hospital environments are facing new challenges this century. One of the most important is the quality of services to patients. Social robots are gaining prominence due to the advantages they offer; in particular, several of their main uses have proven beneficial during the pandemic. This study aims to shed light on the current status of the design of social robots and their interaction with patients. To this end, a systematic review was conducted using WoS and MEDLINE, and the results were exhaustive analyzed. The authors found that most of the initiatives and projects serve the el- derly and children, and specifically, that they helped these groups fight diseases such as dementia, autism spectrum disorder (ASD), cancer, and diabetes

Recommendations for the non-pharmacological treatment of apathy in brain disorders

Apathy is a common neuropsychiatric syndrome observed across many neurocognitive and psychiatric disorders. Although there are currently no definitive standard therapies for the treatment of apathy, non-pharmacological treatment (NPT) is often considered to be at the forefront of clinical management. However, guidelines on how to select, prescribe and administer NPT in clinical practice are lacking. Furthermore, although new Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) are beginning to be employed in NPT, their role is still unclear. The objective of the present work is to provide recommendations for the use of NPT for apathy, and to discuss the role of ICT in this domain, based on opinions gathered from experts in the field. The expert panel included 20 researchers and healthcare professionals working on brain disorders and apathy. Following a standard Delphi methodology, experts answered questions via several rounds of web-surveys, and then discussed the results in a plenary meeting. The experts suggested that NPT are useful to consider as therapy for people presenting with different neurocognitive and psychiatric diseases at all stages, with evidence of apathy across domains. The presence of a therapist and/or a caregiver is important in delivering NPT effectively, but parts of the treatment may be performed by the patient alone. NPT can be delivered both in clinical settings and at home. However, while remote treatment delivery may be cost and time-effective, it should be considered with caution, and tailored based on the patient's cognitive and physical profile and living conditions