Pervasive Technologies and Support for Independent Living

A broad range of pervasive technologies are used in many domains, including healthcare: however, there appears to be little work examining the role of such technologies in the home, or the different wants and needs of elderly users. Additionally, there exist ethical issues surrounding the use of highly personal healthcare-related data, and interface issues centred on the novelty of the technologies and the disabilities experienced by the users. This report examines these areas, before considering the ways in which they might come together to help support independent-living users with disabilities which may be age-related

East Midlands Research into Ageing Network (EMRAN) Discussion Paper Series

Academic geriatric medicine in Leicester . There has never been a better time to consider joining us. We have recently appointed a Professor in Geriatric Medicine, alongside Tom Robinson in stroke and Victoria Haunton, who has just joined as a Senior Lecturer in Geriatric Medicine. We have fantastic opportunities to support students in their academic pursuits through a well-established intercalated BSc programme, and routes on through such as ACF posts, and a successful track-record in delivering higher degrees leading to ACL post. We collaborate strongly with Health Sciences, including academic primary care. See below for more detail on our existing academic set-up. Leicester Academy for the Study of Ageing We are also collaborating on a grander scale, through a joint academic venture focusing on ageing, the ‘Leicester Academy for the Study of Ageing’ (LASA), which involves the local health service providers (acute and community), De Montfort University; University of Leicester; Leicester City Council; Leicestershire County Council and Leicester Age UK. Professors Jayne Brown and Simon Conroy jointly Chair LASA and have recently been joined by two further Chairs, Professors Kay de Vries and Bertha Ochieng. Karen Harrison Dening has also recently been appointed an Honorary Chair. LASA aims to improve outcomes for older people and those that care for them that takes a person-centred, whole system perspective. Our research will take a global perspective, but will seek to maximise benefits for the people of Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland, including building capacity. We are undertaking applied, translational, interdisciplinary research, focused on older people, which will deliver research outcomes that address domains from: physical/medical; functional ability, cognitive/psychological; social or environmental factors. LASA also seeks to support commissioners and providers alike for advice on how to improve care for older people, whether by research, education or service delivery. Examples of recent research projects include: ‘Local History Café’ project specifically undertaking an evaluation on loneliness and social isolation; ‘Better Visits’ project focused on improving visiting for family members of people with dementia resident in care homes; and a study on health issues for older LGBT people in Leicester. Clinical Geriatric Medicine in Leicester We have developed a service which recognises the complexity of managing frail older people at the interface (acute care, emergency care and links with community services). There are presently 17 consultant geriatricians supported by existing multidisciplinary teams, including the largest complement of Advance Nurse Practitioners in the country. Together we deliver Comprehensive Geriatric Assessment to frail older people with urgent care needs in acute and community settings. The acute and emergency frailty units – Leicester Royal Infirmary This development aims at delivering Comprehensive Geriatric Assessment to frail older people in the acute setting. Patients are screened for frailty in the Emergency Department and then undergo a multidisciplinary assessment including a consultant geriatrician, before being triaged to the most appropriate setting. This might include admission to in-patient care in the acute or community setting, intermediate care (residential or home based), or occasionally other specialist care (e.g. cardiorespiratory). Our new emergency department is the county’s first frail friendly build and includes fantastic facilities aimed at promoting early recovering and reducing the risk of hospital associated harms. There is also a daily liaison service jointly run with the psychogeriatricians (FOPAL); we have been examining geriatric outreach to oncology and surgery as part of an NIHR funded study. We are home to the Acute Frailty Network, and those interested in service developments at the national scale would be welcome to get involved. Orthogeriatrics There are now dedicated hip fracture wards and joint care with anaesthetists, orthopaedic surgeons and geriatricians. There are also consultants in metabolic bone disease that run clinics. Community work Community work will consist of reviewing patients in clinic who have been triaged to return to the community setting following an acute assessment described above. Additionally, primary care colleagues refer to outpatients for sub-acute reviews. You will work closely with local GPs with support from consultants to deliver post-acute, subacute, intermediate and rehabilitation care services. Stroke Medicine 24/7 thrombolysis and TIA services. The latter is considered one of the best in the UK and along with the high standard of vascular surgery locally means one of the best performances regarding carotid intervention

M-health review: joining up healthcare in a wireless world

In recent years, there has been a huge increase in the use of information and communication technologies (ICT) to deliver health and social care. This trend is bound to continue as providers (whether public or private) strive to deliver better care to more people under conditions of severe budgetary constraint

Jefferson Digital Commons quarterly report: January-March 2020

This quarterly report includes: New Look for the Jefferson Digital Commons Articles COVID-19 Working Papers Educational Materials From the Archives Grand Rounds and Lectures JeffMD Scholarly Inquiry Abstracts Journals and Newsletters Master of Public Health Capstones Oral Histories Posters and Conference Presentations What People are Saying About the Jefferson the Digital Common

Exploring The Responsibilities Of Single-Inhabitant Smart Homes With Use Cases

DOI: 10.3233/AIS-2010-0076This paper makes a number of contributions to the field of requirements analysis for Smart Homes. It introduces Use Cases as a tool for exploring the responsibilities of Smart Homes and it proposes a modification of the conventional Use Case structure to suit the particular requirements of Smart Homes. It presents a taxonomy of Smart-Home-related Use Cases with seven categories. It draws on those Use Cases as raw material for developing questions and conclusions about the design of Smart Homes for single elderly inhabitants, and it introduces the SHMUC repository, a web-based repository of Use Cases related to Smart Homes that anyone can exploit and to which anyone may contribute

Human capital, innovation and the productive ageing: growth and senior aged health in the regional community through engaged higher education

[Abstract]: This paper examines how low relative economic growth and high service and infrastructure costs in non-metropolitan regions that are increasingly attractive to lifestyle-seeking seniors, can be offset by focussing more positively on the human capital dimension of this cohort through closer engagement with higher education learning and innovation. At present, many senior-aged persons attracted to ‘lifestyle’ locations are allowed to let their knowledge, networks and skills ossify through a lack of engagement with processes of learning and innovation and institutional impediments of a structural and attitudinal nature. It represents poor return on sunk investment in human capital, has cost impacts on enabling health and community services and infrastructure and does not contribute as positively as it could to regional growth outcomes through productivity gains. The spatial impact of this will exacerbate as the demographic profile of the nation continues to age. Higher education in these places could be a key instrument in the learning and innovation required to realise the greater productivity gains from senior-aged human capital and the consequential growth and health outcomes at the local and regional scale. The paper reports on the literature, research undertaken and analysis to understand these potentially important issues of policy and practice. The paper has a particular focus on the Sunshine Coast and Wide Bay Burnett regions of Queensland which have some of the highest concentrations of senior aged people in Australia

Projecting the Community Pharmacy into Home Health Care: An IS Perspective

Community pharmacies deliver accessible and personalized health care to populations worldwide. Provision of medicine therapy is central to this business but the continuous interactions with clients in their homes is problematic. This paper models an ecosystem of wellness for community pharmacies and presents five generations of smart pharmaceutical care systems (SPCS) for home interventions. Our project follows the design science research paradigm and is supported in an extensive review of 56 recent information systems papers. Two key challenges of Health 5.0 are addressed: digital medication management and sustainable medicine use. SPCS reveal potential to change the business model of community pharmacies. However, spanning the pharmacy boundaries with digital technologies requires (1) socio-technical strategies to differentiate their offer, (2) technologies tailored to the needs of each client, (3) collective intelligence production in medicine supply chains, and (4) humanized telecare

Volume 14, Nos. 1 and 2

Editors introduction.PapersHow are we to grow old? Robin Burley.The social and psychological aspects of smart home technology within the care sector, Guy Dewsbury.From caring home to smart house - a needs led evolution, D A Bradley, S Levy and S J Brownsell.Frankenstein homes: would you want to live in one? Bruce J Taylor.Design with care, Keith Cheverst, Karen Clarke, Sue Cobb, Terry Hemmings, Stewart Kember, Keith Mitchell, Peter Phillips, Rob Procter, Tom Rodden and Mark Rouncefield.Hospital managers closely observed: some features of new technology and everyday managerial work, Karen Clarke, Mark Hartswood, Rob Procter and Mark Rouncefield

User Perception of Automated Dose Dispensed Medicine in Home Care: A Scoping Review

(1) Background: Automated dose dispensing (ADD) systems are today used around the world. The ADD robots are placed in patients’ homes to increase medication safety as well as medication adherence; however, little is known about how ADD robots affect the patient’s day-to-day lives, receiving the daily doses of medicine from a machine rather than from a human healthcare professional. The aim of this study is to review the available literature on users’ perceptions of having an ADD robot and collect evidence on how they perceive having less human contact after implementing this technology in their homes. (2) Methods: References were searched for in Embase and PubMed. Literature investigating ADD robots in primary healthcare was included in this study and literature in a hospital setting was excluded. After screening processes, eleven publications were included in this review. (3) Results: The literature reported high medication adherence when using ADD robots and general satisfaction in terms of user experiences with the acceptability and functionality of ADD. (4) Conclusion: The review is the first focusing on user experience and perceptions regarding ADD robots. General satisfaction was shown towards ADD robots as an intervention, but the review indicates that research is missing on healthcare professionals and patient perceptions on how ADD affects their routines, both in relation to work and daily life

Delivering elder-care environments utilizing TV-channel based mechanisms

In this paper, we present a smart environment for elderly. What makes the development of such system challenging is that the concept of smartness for elderly brings to the extreme the idea of invisibility of the technology. In our experience, elders are well-disposed to new technologies, provided that those will not require significant changes - namely, they are invisible - to their habits. Starting from this consideration, 200 caregivers responses were collected by questionnaire, so as to better understand elders' needs and habits. A system was subsequently developed allowing elders to access a number of "modern web services" as standard TV channels: at channel 43 there is the health status, at channel 45 the photos of the family, at 46 the agenda of the week, just to mention few of the available services. The content of such services is automatically generated by the smart devices in the environment and is managed by the caregivers (e.g., family members) by simple web apps. Fourteen families were asked to install the system in their house. The results of these experiments confirm that the proposed system is considered effective and user-friendly by elders