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

Use of nonintrusive sensor-based information and communication technology for real-world evidence for clinical trials in dementia

Cognitive function is an important end point of treatments in dementia clinical trials. Measuring cognitive function by standardized tests, however, is biased toward highly constrained environments (such as hospitals) in selected samples. Patient-powered real-world evidence using information and communication technology devices, including environmental and wearable sensors, may help to overcome these limitations. This position paper describes current and novel information and communication technology devices and algorithms to monitor behavior and function in people with prodromal and manifest stages of dementia continuously, and discusses clinical, technological, ethical, regulatory, and user-centered requirements for collecting real-world evidence in future randomized controlled trials. Challenges of data safety, quality, and privacy and regulatory requirements need to be addressed by future smart sensor technologies. When these requirements are satisfied, these technologies will provide access to truly user relevant outcomes and broader cohorts of participants than currently sampled in clinical trials

Overcoming barriers and increasing independence: service robots for elderly and disabled people

This paper discusses the potential for service robots to overcome barriers and increase independence of elderly and disabled people. It includes a brief overview of the existing uses of service robots by disabled and elderly people and advances in technology which will make new uses possible and provides suggestions for some of these new applications. The paper also considers the design and other conditions to be met for user acceptance. It also discusses the complementarity of assistive service robots and personal assistance and considers the types of applications and users for which service robots are and are not suitable

Long-term use of motion-based video games in care home settings

Recent research suggests that motion-based video games have the potential to provide both mental and physical stimulation for older adults in residential care. However, little research has explored the practical challenges and opportunities that arise from integrating these games within existing schedules of activities in these contexts. In our work, we report on a qualitative enquiry that was conducted over a three month period at two long-term care facilities. Findings suggest that older adults enjoyed playing video games, and that games can be a valuable means of re-introducing challenge in late life, but that the impact of age-related changes and impairment can influence people’s ability to engage with games in a group setting. We outline core challenges in the design for care context and discuss implications of our work regarding the suitability of games as a self-directed leisure activity

The Configuration of Older Users as Drivers of Innovation in the Design of Digital Technologies

This paper develops hypotheses on the discovery of older people as "users" in the publicly funded development of digital technologies and underlying innovation policy motives. We then describe the effects of this innovation policy on the development of products and older people as their users in the context of Ambient Assisted Living (AAL). To this end, we reconstruct the involvement of users in two AAL funding programs, one at the European level and one at the national level (Germany). Based on this, we discuss the resulting consequences by describing how older people are configured as users in technology development with a focus on the concept of user-centered design (UCD) and what this configuration means for the developed technologies as well as for the older users. We describe how the participation of older people in technology development projects is a complex task that is not without controversy in social science research on user participation. We conclude by arguing for alternative technology development strategies and funding practices

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

Paths and Technologies in the Life Project of People with Disabilities: International Perspectives and Educational Potential

The purpose of this paper was to analyse the core of the quality of life, intended as a complex construct with specific and transversal features. The approach to this issue, by linking it to the great emergency of disability in adulthood, pushes the analysis into deep conceptual pedagogical reflections, which lead the authors\u2019 initial reflections to focus on the theoretical framework related to the quality of life model and subsequently on the identification of some areas of intervention as a tangible application of the quality of life model. New perspectives and innovative potentials for the quality of life of adults with disability are investigated to reach new awareness, which can also be applied in different life contexts. The paper mentions meaningful trajectories, also from the international scene, aiming to guarantee significantly oriented life trajectories

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

Ethics and Acceptance of Smart Homes for Older Adults

Societal challenges associated with caring for the physical and mental health of the elderly worldwide have grown at an unprecedented pace, increasing demand for healthcare services and technologies [1]. Despite the development of several assistive systems tailored to older adults, the rate of adoption of health technologies is low [2, 3]. This review discusses the ethical and acceptability challenges resulting in low adoption of health technologies specifically focused on smart homes for the elderly. The findings have been structured in two categories: Ethical Considerations (Privacy, Social Support, Autonomy) and Technology Aspects (User Context, Usability, Training). The findings conclude that the elderly community is more likely to adopt assistive systems when four key criteria are met. The technology should: be personalized towards their needs, protect their dignity and independence, provide user control, and not be isolating. Finally, we recommend researchers and developers working on assistive systems to: (1) Provide interfaces via smart devices to control and configure the monitoring system with feedback for the user, (2) Include various sensors/devices to architect a smart home solution in a way that is easy to integrate in daily life and (3) Define policies about data ownership