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Making and unmaking ageing-in-place
Published in Alexander Peine, Barbara L. Marshall, Wendy Martin, Louis Neven, Socio-gerontechnology, 2021
Susan van Hees, Anna Wanka, Klasien Horstman
The concept of ‘ageing-in-place’ is currently a popular concept in ageing policies and gerontology, as it is said to reduce costs for institutionalised care (WHO 2007b) while addressing the wishes of older people to continue living independently (Wiles et al. 2011). Ageing-in-place can be defined as ‘remaining living in the community, with some level of independence, rather than in residential care’ (Davey et al. 2004, p. 133) and is thus framed as an enabling factor for older people to maintain independence, autonomy and social relationships (e.g. Callahan 1993; Keeling 1999; Lawler 2001). Hence, many scientists and policymakers conceptualise ageing-in-place as an inherently ‘good thing’ that should be pursued for and by all older adults. These scientists and policymakers argue for the development of age-friendly cities and communities, considering ageing-in-place both a worthwhile and an achievable goal (Buffel and Phillipson 2018; WHO 2015).
Introduction
Published in Anne McLaughlin, Richard Pak, Designing Displays for Older Adults, 2020
This book is intended as a guide to designing technology to enable older adults (generally defined as over age 65) to live independently, happily, and healthily for as long as possible. With that in mind, the technologies selected for evaluation revolve around home, work, personal mobility, and health. In each of these use cases, we discuss how current or future systems might be designed for older adults’ capabilities, limitations, and preferences. Regarding the home, the concept of aging-in-place, or older adults’ desire to live independently in their home as long as possible, is one area that can clearly be facilitated by technology. New technologies such as smart home devices are making this even more likely than before. Related to aging-in-place, technology is enabling older adults to be more aware of their health and to help them manage conditions that once required specialized equipment. In the realm of work, older adults are choosing (or need to for financial reasons) to remain in the workforce longer. Even after retirement, they may be increasingly likely to pick up part-time jobs that allow them to work from home for extra income or volunteer positions that also decrease social isolation. Finally, in the past few years, personal mobility options have increased with the rise of ridesharing. The landscape of technological change coupled with these new societal trends heavily informed our selection of systems to evaluate (second half of the book). In the following sections, we further detail demographic and technological changes since the publication of the last edition.
Guiding Technology Design to Empower Older Adults to Actively Engage in Society
Published in Rod D. Roscoe, Erin K. Chiou, Abigail R. Wooldridge, Advancing Diversity, Inclusion, and Social Justice Through Human Systems Engineering, 2019
Maurita T. Harris, Qiong Nie, Wendy A. Rogers
Many older adults are interested in remaining in their communities and retaining their social relationships and autonomy (i.e., “aging in place”), yet their age-related difficulties and disabilities introduce meaningful challenges. A possible solution is to create a smart home. Chan and colleagues (2009, p. 91) defined a smart home as a “residence equipped with technology that allows monitoring of its inhabits and/or encourages independence and the maintenance of good health.” Smart home technologies are increasingly considered as a solution. Examples of smart home technologies include digital home assistants (e.g., Amazon Echo and Google Home), smart thermostats (e.g., Nest and Ecobee), smart lighting (e.g., Philips Hue and TP-Link), and smart door locks (e.g., August Smart Lock and Schlage Z-Wave). Research in this area has focused on reviewing available technologies(Satariano, Scharlach, & Lindeman, 2014), understanding what older adults consider when presented with smart technologies (Liu, Stroulia, Nikolaidis, Miguel-Cruz, & Rincon, 2016; Peek et al., 2016), and the factors that influence technology acceptance (Courtney, Demiris, Rantz, & Skubic, 2008; Peek, Aarts, & Wouters, 2015). However, there is a gap in understanding how specific technologies are designed for and support the specific needs of older adults in their homes, especially with regard to long-term use for diverse older adults.
Assistive digital technology to promote quality of life and independent living for older adults through improved self-regulation: a scoping review
Published in Behaviour & Information Technology, 2022
Gaja Zager Kocjan, Tanja Špes, Matija Svetina, Nejc Plohl, Urška Smrke, Izidor Mlakar, Bojan Musil
The current systemic response to the changing and increasing need for support in old age is a particular form of institutionalised living environment that provides various types of support services to the elderly. Moving from home to an institutional setting is a complex experience that older adults often find as extremely negative and even traumatic (Fornara et al. 2019; Fornara and Manca 2017); elderly are in favour of aging in the home environment, maintaining their autonomy and playing an active role in life (Calvaresi et al. 2017). The concept of aging in place can be defined as the ability to live safely, independently, and comfortably in one’s own home and community, regardless of age, income, or functional ability (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 2009). Aging in place can have a variety of positive effects on the mental and physical health and overall quality of life of older adults such as maintaining self-esteem; strengthening one’s identity and independence; fostering a sense of safety, intimacy, and belonging that occurs in a familiar setting; and maintaining lasting relationships in the community (Fornara et al. 2019).
Meaning Over Things: How Objects and Places Matter to the Residential Happiness of Older Adults
Published in Journal of Aging and Environment, 2022
Functional solutions, such as stairlifts and assistive living technologies, are increasingly introduced in (new) homes for older adults to increase residential satisfaction and facilitate aging in place (Peek et al., 2016). Residential satisfaction is mainly understood as a cognitive evaluation of the difference between what the resident possesses in their residential environment and what they would like to possess (Wu, 2008). However, the reasons older adults choose to age in their homes often are less pragmatic. Not only the objective quality of the residential environment is found to be important, but also the subjective evaluation of experienced feelings in that residential environment. Research shows that older adults often related to feelings, such as joy, relaxation, safety, comfort, a sense of freedom, a sense of being connected to others via place and a sense of feeling at home. A personal evaluation of these feelings, which can be evoked by places, objects and activities related to the residential environment, including the home, neighborhood and neighbors, is referred to as “residential happiness” (Annink, 2019, p. 641). We argue it is crucial scholars expand their focus from the enabling and constraining elements of older adults’ home environments (Van Hees et al., 2018) to how older adults construct feelings of residential happiness.
Big data analytics in medical engineering and healthcare: methods, advances and challenges
Published in Journal of Medical Engineering & Technology, 2020
Lidong Wang, Cheryl Ann Alexander
A system named “aging in place” has been used in several high-income countries to offer cost-effective healthcare with better coordination for elderly people and facilitate community- or home-based care. Using cloud computing to provide personalised healthcare everywhere and cost-efficient care as part of “aging in place” is a big data issue. Using big data on the web to enhance “aging in place” needs various health data through the integration of public and clinical health information systems [73]. A bioinformatics workflow system named Closha was developed for the analysis of large-scale genomic data based on the cloud. Closha allows users to conduct both traditional analysis and MapReduce-based big data analysis. The analytics algorithms can be performed in parallel computation. Galaxy pipelines can also be import into Closha [74].