Insights Into the Older Adults' World: Concepts of Aging, Care, and Using Assistive Technology in Late Adulthood.

The ongoing demographic change forces different stakeholders to cope with increasing needs in nursing care and the economic costs. Consequences arising from the population aging can be supported by assistive technologies to maintain older individuals' autonomy. However, older adults' opinions on the assistance of health-related technologies and their attitudes toward aging and care largely remain underexplored. This paper provides a geriatric and socio-technical perspective, investigating individual perceptions of (a) aging, (b) nursing care, and (c) the adoption of assistive technologies in a cross-national subject group. For this purpose, N = 384 individuals (60+ years) participated in an online survey. Findings indicate that most older adults are open to assistive technologies and that individual care preferences contribute to a successful adoption of these technologies. Among individual factors, health status, and gender affect respondents' opinions the most. Our findings help to understand older adults' acceptance of assistive technologies and contribute to the research on the nursing care in private and professional environments.

Nothing Else Matters! Trade-Offs Between Perceived Benefits and Barriers of AAL Technology Usage.

Ambient assisted living (AAL) technologies present one approach to counter the challenges of demographic change in terms of an aging population, rising care needs, and lacking care personnel by supporting (older) people in need of care and enabling a longer and more independent staying at own home. Although the number of studies focusing on AAL users' acceptance and perception has increased in the last years, trade-off decisions-the weighing of perceived benefits and barriers of technology usage-have not been studied so far. Nevertheless, this is of high relevance: A realistic evaluation of adoption behaviors in different stakeholders (patients, care personnel) requires an understanding of exactly the weighing process of benefits against the barriers in line with the decision of the final willingness to use AAL technology. The current study applied a conjoint analysis approach and investigates people's decision behavior to use an AAL system for a family member in need of care. Study participants (n = 140) had to decide between realistic care scenarios consisting of different options of two benefits (increase in safety, relief of caring burden of relatives) and two barriers (access to personal data and data handling) of technology usage. Results revealed data access and privacy to be most relevant for the decision to use AAL technology at home. However, care experience essentially influenced the decision patterns. For the care experienced group, data access should be limited to most trusted persons and close relatives, rather than to medical professionals. The most important reasons to use AAL are the emotional relief and the felt safety for the person in care. For care novices, in contrast, data access should be in the exclusive responsibility of medical professionals. The reasons that militate in favor of using AAL technology are the increase in process efficiency and medical safety. The results are useful to develop user-tailored technology concepts and derive user-specific communication guidelines within and across clinical and home care contexts.

Bare necessities? How the need for care modulates the acceptance of ambient assisted living technologies.

BACKGROUND: Steadily increasing numbers of older people and people in need of care represent critical challenges for today's society. In the last years, diverse (health-related) technologies have been developed to facilitate living at home for older people but also to support (professional) care personnel in their daily care efforts. Ambient Assisted Living (AAL) technologies have the potential to enhance safety, support medical therapy, or facilitate everyday chores and social life. With the huge range and variety of technical opportunities, the question arises what influences (potential) users' decisions for the right technology in their individual conditions and situations. In particular with regard to the fragility of the care situation, it is unknown which technologies are desired for different care needs and diverse situations. OBJECTIVES: The present study investigates (1) personal care needs as a potential influencing parameter for technology acceptance and (2) the selection of specific technologies. METHOD: In an online questionnaire (including n = 162 people of all ages), technology acceptance and the selection of specific technologies was assessed, using two scenarios differing in their personal care needs (low care needs vs. moderate care needs) in two situational contexts (emergency detection vs. medical reminders). RESULTS: Personal care needs influence the perception of benefits, barriers, and general acceptance of assisting technologies, independent from situational context. Higher needs for care lead to higher acknowledgements of the technology's benefits, lower agreements or, in parts, higher rejections of potential barriers and higher acceptance. The two care situations differ regarding the participants' preferences for technologies: For emergency detection, smart watches and emergency buttons are clearly accepted. In contrast, cameras are consistently rejected. For situations in which medical reminders are used, smartphone and smartwatches are most wanted, whereas audio assistants and smart TV were rather rejected. CONCLUSIONS: The results provide insights into users' preferences for specific technologies for the purpose of emergency detection and medical reminders as well as for the important influence of personal care needs. These insights can be used to derive user-tailored solutions of technology configurations for specific care needs and situations.

They Don't Care About Us! Care Personnel's Perspectives on Ambient Assisted Living Technology Usage: Scenario-Based Survey Study.

BACKGROUND: Demographic change represents enormous burdens for the care sectors, resulting in high proportions of (older) people in need of care and a lack of care staff. Ambient Assisted Living (AAL) technologies have the potential to support the bottlenecks in care supply but are not yet in widespread use in professional care contexts. OBJECTIVE: The objective of our study was to investigate professional caregivers' AAL technology acceptance and their perception regarding specific technologies, data handling, perceived benefits, and barriers. In particular, this study focuses on the perspectives on AAL technologies differing between care professionals working in diverse care contexts to examine the extent to which the care context influences the acceptance of assistive technologies. METHODS: A Web-based survey (N=170) was carried out focusing on professional caregivers including medical, geriatric, and disabled people's caregivers. Based on a scenario, the participants were asked for their perceptions concerning specific technologies, specific types of gathered data, and potential benefits of and barriers to AAL technology usage. RESULTS: The care context significantly impacted the evaluations of AAL technologies (F14,220=2.514; P=.002). Professional caregivers of disabled people had a significantly more critical attitude toward AAL technologies than medical and geriatric caregivers, indicated (1) by being the only caregiver group that rejected evaluations of AAL technology acceptance (F2,118=4.570; P=.01) and specific technologies (F2,118=11.727; P<.001) applied for gathering data and (2) by the comparatively lowest agreements referring to the evaluations of data types (F2,118=4.073, P=.02) that are allowed to be gathered. CONCLUSIONS: AAL technology acceptance is critical because of technology implementation reasons, especially in the care of people with disabilities. AAL technologies in care contexts have to be tailored to care professional's needs and concerns ("care about us"). The results contribute to a broader understanding of professional caregivers' needs referring to specific data and technology configurations and enclose major differences concerning diverse care contexts. Integrating these findings into user group-tailored technology concepts and communication strategies will support a sustainable adoption of AAL systems in professional care contexts.

Let's Talk about TEX-Understanding Consumer Preferences for Smart Interactive Textile Products Using a Conjoint Analysis Approach.

Interactive textiles are reaching maturity. First technology augmented textiles in form of clothes and furnitures are becoming commercially available. In contrast to the close link between technological development and innovations, future users' acceptance and usage of such interactive textiles has not been integrated sufficiently, yet. The current study investigates future users' consumer behavior and acceptance of interactive textiles using a scenario-based conjoint analysis study, which was presented in an online questionnaire ( n = 324 ). Two prototypical interactive textiles were focused on: a smart jacket and a smart armchair. To assess the textile products, the participants had to choose the preferred product alternative consisting each of the acceptance-relevant factors "connectivity", "input modality", "feature range", "usability", and "ease of cleaning"and their respective levels. The results revealed that the "ease of cleaning" is the most important decision criterion for both textile devices (even more important for the smart jacket), followed by "feature range", "connectivity", and "usability". In contrast, the "input modality" is perceived as least important. The study also identified user profiles based on the projected consumer behavior ("adopters", "rejecters", and "undecided") for both products. Besides the differences in product evaluation and projected consumer behavior, the user groups are significantly influenced by the individual affinity to textiles (both products) and gender (smart jacket). The findings are used to derive design and communication guidelines referring to interactive textiles in order to incorporate users' needs, wishes, and requirements into future products.

Ambient Assisted Living as Support for Aging in Place: Quantitative Users' Acceptance Study on Ultrasonic Whistles.

BACKGROUND: Given the fact of an aging society, new supply measures and living concepts are needed, especially as health impairments along with care dependency increase with age. As many elderly people wish to stay at home for as long as possible, ambient assisted living (AAL) represents a support for aging in place. OBJECTIVE: AAL combines medical and care technology within living environments and is, therefore, a promising approach to cope with demographic change in terms of fast-growing care needs and fewer skilled workers. Ultrasonic whistles represent one innovative technical possibility for such supportive housing solutions. Central fields of application are home automation, emergency service, and positioning. As AAL technologies affect sensitive areas of life, it is of great interest under which conditions they are accepted or rejected, taking individual user requirements into account. Hence, the aim of this study was to investigate users' perception and evaluation of ultrasonic whistles. METHODS: In this study, we examined the acceptance of ultrasonic whistles in home care by function and room using a Web-based questionnaire. Besides an evaluation of the overall usefulness, we focused on the intention to use ultrasonic whistles; 270 participants assessed home automation, emergency service, and positioning as specific functions of ultrasonic whistles. Furthermore, bathroom, bedroom, and living room were evaluated as specific usage locations (rooms). With regard to the user's perspective, the focus was set on age and attitudes toward aging of care receivers. RESULTS: This study revealed a significant influence of function (F2,269=60.444; P<.001), room (F2,269=41.388; P<.001), and the interaction of function and room (F4,269=8.701; P<.001) on the acceptance of ultrasonic whistles. The use of emergency services within the bathroom represented the most accepted alternative, whereas positioning within the living room received the comparably lowest evaluations. Although user diversity played a minor role for acceptance overall, the assessment of single applications differed among user groups, particularly with regard to age differences (F20,500=1.988; P<.01) in the evaluation of specific installation options such as automated doors. CONCLUSIONS: The study revealed profound insights into the user-centered assessment of ultrasonic whistles in home care and discovered function and room as influencing acceptance parameters. Concerning user characteristics, age, and attitude toward aging partly affected these evaluations, forming the basis for and showing the importance of further investigations in this context.