Engaging older adults through Touch Technology
Engaging older adults through Touch Technology
The Director of Swinburne’s Future Self and Design Living
Lab, Associate Professor Sonja Pedell, along with Emeritus Professor Leon
Sterling and other member of the Centre for Design Innovation are a part of a
global movement that believes end-users emotions should be a key factor when
searching for solutions to design problems.
A current focus on their work is on emergency alarms for vulnerable
Australian’s, in a research project supported by the Smart Internet Cooperative
Research Centre and the Australian Research Council.
The researchers have developed an iPad based, picture-frame
like device that allows older people to receive photos and messages from loved
ones each day.
This device allows the participants to respond and interact
with these messages, and in doing so, an alert will be sent to their carers and
community service providers that the participant is doing okay.
Research found that traditional methods of home alarm
systems and wellbeing check systems were like ‘cowbells’ forced upon the elderly,
and initial trial of the new check-in system have proven to be a successful
alternative.
Associate Professor Pedell has said elderly users are more
engaged with the iPad system as it increases their contact with family and
friends.
“From an emotional point of view, people were feeling not
only cared for, but also cared about, and that is the critical difference”, she
said.
While technology has the potential to improve lives, it
often falls short as it fails to address the emotional requirements. Pedell
aims to overcome this through an “emotion-led approach where we ask the
end-users, ‘how would you like to feel?’”
Through the Future Self project in the Centre for Design
Innovation and the Living Lab, Pedell and her colleagues were also
investigating the use of music and humanoid robots to increase socialisation
among dementia sufferers, and refurbishment innovations in older people’s
homes.
More information can be found here: http://www.swinburne.edu.au/news/latest-news/2017/10/engaging-older-adults-through-touch-tablets.php
Posted on 12 / 10 / 2017
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