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This pilot project aims to test and see the relevance of the direct observation method to collect data on the barriers and facilitators to attending public places by seniors with TBI. The study is based on the conceptual framework VADA WHO which focuses on the development of friendly built and technological environments for seniors. Three elderly people participated in the study, recruited from an ongoing project, The Citizen Intervention in Community Living (APIC), in the presence of their personalized attendant. The study shows the feasibility of the method in terms of its acceptability and resources mobilized. It shows its relevance to access additional data that would have been difficult to obtain using others methods (e.g., semi-structured interview), such as the identification of the strategies used by the participants to address the obstacles encountered (avoidance, travel planning, use of physical and preventative support of the personalized attendant).

In the shift from inpatient to outpatient care that the province of Quebec is presently experiencing, the prompt assistance offered to older persons in then-domestic environment, is the kind of help that needs to be examined. The pilot project “Vie autonome chez soi” was intended to offer this type of service. The project took place in Montreal during 1990 and offered three services: a warden, a home security system and a telephone service (24–7). The objective of this evaluative study which uses a qualitative methodology is to discuss the implementation and functioning of the pilot project as well as to discover if some of the intended effects had been achieved through the services. Use of the alarm system had a positive impact on security for most of the participants who were still active in the project at the time of the evaluation. The warden services and the 24' security.