Safety Concerns in Mobility-Assistive Products for Older Adults: Content Analysis of Online Reviews.

BACKGROUND: Older adults who have difficulty moving around are commonly advised to adopt mobility-assistive devices to prevent injuries. However, limited evidence exists on the safety of these devices. Existing data sources such as the National Electronic Injury Surveillance System tend to focus on injury description rather than the underlying context, thus providing little to no actionable information regarding the safety of these devices. Although online reviews are often used by consumers to assess the safety of products, prior studies have not explored consumer-reported injuries and safety concerns within online reviews of mobility-assistive devices. OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to investigate injury types and contexts stemming from the use of mobility-assistive devices, as reported by older adults or their caregivers in online reviews. It not only identified injury severities and mobility-assistive device failure pathways but also shed light on the development of safety information and protocols for these products. METHODS: Reviews concerning assistive devices were extracted from the "assistive aid" categories, which are typically intended for older adult use, on Amazon's US website. The extracted reviews were filtered so that only those pertaining to mobility-assistive devices (canes, gait or transfer belts, ramps, walkers or rollators, and wheelchairs or transport chairs) were retained. We conducted large-scale content analysis of these 48,886 retained reviews by coding them according to injury type (no injury, potential future injury, minor injury, and major injury) and injury pathway (device critical component breakage or decoupling; unintended movement; instability; poor, uneven surface handling; and trip hazards). Coding efforts were carried out across 2 separate phases in which the team manually verified all instances coded as minor injury, major injury, or potential future injury and established interrater reliability to validate coding efforts. RESULTS: The content analysis provided a better understanding of the contexts and conditions leading to user injury, as well as the severity of injuries associated with these mobility-assistive devices. Injury pathways-device critical component failures; unintended device movement; poor, uneven surface handling; instability; and trip hazards-were identified for 5 product types (canes, gait and transfer belts, ramps, walkers and rollators, and wheelchairs and transport chairs). Outcomes were normalized per 10,000 posting counts (online reviews) mentioning minor injury, major injury, or potential future injury by product category. Overall, per 10,000 reviews, 240 (2.4%) described mobility-assistive equipment-related user injuries, whereas 2318 (23.18%) revealed potential future injuries. CONCLUSIONS: This study highlights mobility-assistive device injury contexts and severities, suggesting that consumers who posted online reviews attribute most serious injuries to a defective item, rather than user misuse. It implies that many mobility-assistive device injuries may be preventable through patient and caregiver education on how to evaluate new and existing equipment for risk of potential future injury.

Defective Assistive Device Involvement in Older Adult Emergency Department Visits.

Background and Objectives: Many older adults adopt equipment to address physical limitations and reduce dependence on others to complete basic activities of daily living. Although a few prior studies have considered injuries associated with assistive devices for older adults, those studies focused on older adults' health and functional risks for injury. There is limited analysis of older adult injuries involving defective or malfunctioning assistive devices. Research Design and Methods: Data from this study are from the National Electronic Surveillance System All Injury Program which collected data on consumer product-related injuries from a probability sample of 66 hospital Emergency Departments across the United States. Data from 30 776 older adult Emergency Department (ED) injury narratives from 2016 to 2020 were coded according to the assistive device involved and whether malfunctioning led to the injury. The study team manually examined all narratives in which the assistive device was coded to have malfunctioned. Results: A total of 10 974 older adult ED cases were treated for 12 488 injuries involving a defective device. Injuries included 4 212 head and neck injuries (eg, concussion), 4 317 trunk injuries (eg, hip fractures), and 3 959 arm or leg injuries (eg, leg fracture). Of these patients, 4 586 were admitted to a hospital ward for further evaluation and treatment. Seventy percent of these patients were injured while using a walker; in contrast, wheelchairs were implicated in only 4% of the above cases. Design flaws were identified in 8 158 cases and part breakage/decoupling incidents in 2 816 cases. Discussion and Implications: Our findings provide evidence that assistive devices are actively involved in older adult injuries. Further research is needed to reduce injuries associated with assistive devices by educating patients and their careproviders about device use and assembly and developing effective methods for informing manufacturers about malfunctioning devices.

Double burden: Exploring the digital divide in the Burmese educational system following the 2021 coup d' etat and the COVID-19 pandemic.

The 2021 military coup d'état in Myanmar and the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic commencing at the end of 2019 have had major impacts on the already existing digital divide in this Southeast Asian country. This paper aims to explore the effects of these two events on the digital divide and their consequences on the learning practices of students in Myanmar. Following a broad review of relevant literature, primary data were collected from students in Myanmar about their use of IT for online learning and the outcomes. The raw data resulting from this field research has been shared with stakeholders who analyzed, evaluated, and commented on it during expert interviews. The main findings are: IT usage for online education among students in Myanmar is a matter of major concern. A majority of students nationwide have no access to computers. The IT skill level in the country corresponds to this finding and is only on an average level. Smartphones are more accessible but are often old or of lower quality. Internet connections are available but are vulnerable to disruptions initiated by the military regime. Therefore, it can be concluded that students in Myanmar in many cases did not have the technical equipment or skills necessary to learn effectively through the usage of IT during the national crises. Nevertheless, it can be stated that IT helped and was also supportive in sustaining and improving the well-being of students in Myanmar.

Empowerment Enabled by Information and Communications Technology and Intention to Sustain a Healthy Behavior: Survey of General Users.

BACKGROUND: Most people with chronic conditions fail to adhere to self-management behavioral guidelines. In the last 2 decades, several mobile health apps and IT-based systems have been designed and developed to help patients change and sustain their healthy behaviors. However, these systems often lead to short-term behavior change or adherence while the goal is to engage the population toward long-term behavior change. OBJECTIVE: This study aims to contribute to the development of long-term health behavior changes or to help people sustain their healthy behavior. For this purpose, we built and tested a theoretical model that includes enablers of empowerment and an intention to sustain a healthy behavior when patients are assisted by information and communications technology. METHODS: Structural equation modeling was used to analyze 427 survey returns collected from a diverse population of participants and patients. Notably, the model testing was performed for physical activity as a generally desirable healthy goal. RESULTS: Message aligned with personal goals, familiarity with technology tools, high self-efficacy, social connection, and community support played a significant role (P<.001) in empowering individuals to maintain a healthy behavior. The feeling of being empowered exhibited a strong influence, with a path coefficient of 0.681 on an intention to sustain healthy behavior. CONCLUSIONS: The uniqueness of this model is its recognition of needs (ie, social connection, community support, and self-efficacy) to sustain a healthy behavior. Individuals are empowered when they are assisted by family and community, specifically when they possess the knowledge, skills, and self-awareness to ascertain and achieve their goals. This nascent theory explains what might lead to more sustainable behavior change and is meant to help designers build better apps that enable people to conduct self-care routines and sustain their behavior.