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During the pre-design phase of supportive intelligent systems, interviews with future users, such as people with dementia, aim to explore the problems for which technology may present a solution. However, interviewing someone with dementia in this unstructured design phase is reported to be challenging resulting in systems that are not truly addressing the needs of the people with dementia. Existing guidelines on creating engaging interviews are often based on post-hoc reflections of researchers and participants. In this study we performed line-to-line sequential in-depth analyses on transcripts of 10 interviews conducted to co-design an interactive intelligent gaming system. Both interviewers and interviewees were subsequently asked to reflect on their experiences. Results show that information exchange with people with dementia can be supported by carefully constructed questions, well-designed probes, and an appropriate length of the interview. To create a pleasant atmosphere during the interviews, researchers should design the interview as a fulfilling experience, be prepared to respond respectfully to negative responses and be able to adapt to different signs of consent. Improving the engagement with people with dementia during interviews can enhance the design and development of intelligent systems that cater to their unique challenges and requirements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous work has shown that technology can facilitate the communication of emotions, social touch, and social presence through haptic devices, meaning devices that provide a haptic stimulation. However, for special user groups living in long-term care facilities, such as people with dementia, the applications of these haptic devices are not apparent. The aim of this study is to understand how haptic devices can be used in intramural care facilities in times of social isolation, focusing on haptic devices that utilize haptic sensation. Five haptic devices were tested at three care facilities. Insights from this study highlight the potential of haptic devices to enhance sensory, affective, and social experiences during video calling between residents and their relatives. Moreover, the importance of the tactile sensation and form factor of haptic devices in the care context is addressed, along with insights on how to create the appropriate atmosphere during video calling. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although there are promising benefits of supportive technology in dementia care, use of these technologies is still limited. It is challenging for researchers and developers in this field to actively involve people with dementia in development. This review updates and builds on existing knowledge by including a contemporary and relevant perspective. This perspective was gained by including search words and search databases from the field of Human Computer Interaction (HCI) and Design, as these fields were expected to supply novel insights in the complex task of actively involving people with dementia in developing supportive technologies. A total of 49 out of 3456 studies were included which describe the development of a great variety of technologies. Often people with dementia were involved in the generative or evaluative phase of the development. Interviews and observations were most commonly used methods. In seven articles the people with dementia were co-designers. This literature review reflects that people with dementia can influence the development of technology in regards to content, design, and even the initial idea, although the impact on how they experience their own involvement remains largely unknown. There is a lack of specific knowledge on appropriate methods and materials for active involvement of people with dementia in supportive technology development, even when including articles from the field of HCI and Design. Future research is needed to further appreciate and improve the desired role of people with dementia in meaningful technology development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of the Active and Assistive Living AAL joint programme is to provide "equipment and services for the independent living of seniors"1. Depaoli 2016 shows in his research that most AAL solutions are technology driven and not adequately centered on service innovations and social innovations2. Additionally, it deems challenging to achieve the intended impact due to a lack of business implementation. It is therefore crucial to involve all levels of users and stakeholders throughout the project. Primary end-users the older adults, sometimes with cognitive decline, secondary end-users informal and professional carers and tertiary end-users branche organizations, local governments and insurance companies all have their own needs and preferences regarding their involvement. Though primary and secondary end-users are increasingly involved during the development of assistive technologies 3, not much is known on how the Dutch tertiary users want to contribute to the process. To gain insights on this a focus group was conducted N=9 to test the following hypotheses: 1. Stakeholders have troubles to be involved in the early fuzzy phases of the development of technology, 2. Stakeholders do not want to invest in products that are ready-to-go-to-market but are out of their current scope, 3. Stakeholders are still unsure about the exact role they can take in projects regarding new technology. A semi-structured group discussion was performed by using five different examples of AAL projects e.g. eWare4, DayGuide5, PaletteV26, Co- TRAIN7 and Happy Walker8. These projects differ in outcomes and are currently in different phases of development. Using a diverse set of exemplary projects is an unique method to spark the discussion on several factors. It was stated that healthcare insurers and municipalities could further facilitate the implementation when it is demonstrated that a technology has added value for their insured and citizens. In addition, it was proposed that organizations that represent the interests of the target group could impose functional requirements on the technology, to give direction to projects and to steer the agenda of research and development. For insurers, it was appointed that there is also a tension between supporting in technology projects on the one hand, and the higher premiums to which it could lead on the other hand. However, overall, the sense of urgency among different tertiary stakeholders that they have a responsibility in facilitating the use of new technology is increasing. Further research will focus on close collaboration with tertiary users in how they can contribute to the development process effectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Caring for a person with dementia PwD can be a significant personal and emotional challenge for informal carers. Informal caregivers frequently report experiencing high levels of stress, mental and physical fatigue, social withdrawal and sleeplessness 1,2. Several technologies and services have been developed to support the care for people with dementia 3. Lifestyle monitoring 4 can reduce caregiver's distress and thereby extend the period that the informal caregiver can sustain the care and support needs for the PwD 5. With lifestyle monitoring, carers have insight in the daily pattern of a person with dementia and thereby communication between both can be enhanced 6. Nevertheless, lifestyle monitoring is unidirectional without the PwD in the communication loop. To support integrated person centered care, we added social robotics to lifestyle monitoring in the European eWare project 7 to support bidirectional communication. Furthermore, the lifestyle monitoring sensors add context awareness to the social robot and the social robot provides an interface between the PwD and the informal carer. With increasing context awareness, the social robot can provide context relevant suggestions to the PwD, yet, it is unknown which suggestions are most appropriate and effective. To gain an insight in these context relevant suggestions, six focus groups 3 with formal carers and 3 with informal carers were performed in three countries The Netherlands, Switzerland and Italy. From the results, 11 functionalities were extracted, rated and ranked with - among others - activity guidance and inactivity monitoring as relevant functionalities to include. The integration of lifestyle monitoring and social robotics is promising and of value to support integrated person centered care. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Intramural care is provided by different teams of day- and night care workers. It can be a challenge to provide the necessary care and support, in particular whenever decisions need to be based on care plans and reports made by someone else. Clear communication and coordination between day- and night care professionals seems to be a prerequisite for guaranteeing 24-hour personalized care and support. Increasingly, this coordination between professionals takes place through information systems such as the Electronic Health Record EHR and digital surveillance technologies, of which the latter are mostly used during the night. These systems can provide professionals a better awareness of the client's care and support needs. However, automatic information exchange between the EHR and the surveillance technology is lacking. Thereby, these systems are used separately, forcing care professionals to manually transfer client data from one system to another. Meanwhile, both systems contain a great amount of possibly relevant data that can reinforce each other. Yet, it is unclear which minimum dataset is relevant to exchange and how the exchange of data can contribute to 24/7 care. Furthermore, care providers struggle with the balance between privacy legislations and the safety of their clients. Therefore, an explorative study was performed with the central question: How can it be ensured that care professionals have a good picture of the client's healthcare needs 24 hours a day, regardless of the different systems that are supporting them? Semi-structured interviews and focus groups were performed with day- and night care professionals of six care organizations and developers of six EHR suppliers and six surveillance technology suppliers. The interviews and focus groups were held to gather an insight in their perceptions in respect to the research question. From the study it appeared that standardization is lacking to enable the exchange of information between systems and that a vendor lock-in is quite common among care organizations. Care professionals and organizations have the need to be provided with relevant information at the right time through one central system, or as few solutions as possible. The communication and coordination between day- and night care professionals can - according to care professionals - be accomplished by: having and sharing a clear vision on the use of night care technology among all relevant stakeholders; active support for this vision by the board of directors; assigning key-users to support and promote exchange; and night care integration in EHR. The integrated use of data from various sources is an important condition for exploiting the predictive value of data and more proactively responding to potential risks and needs of clients. Information exchange and the optimal use of this information not only involves the integration of technology, but also the integration of services and work procedures. This requires a cultural change within healthcare organizations with support of all stakeholders. Thus, integrated care must be addressed both at the human and system level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Integrated care means doing justice to life in all its facets and supporting it where that is necessary for the client. This advocates the coordination of different forms of care and support and the integrated use of data that is available on these different facets of life. It can be challenging to provide the necessary care, in particular when different people are involved and decisions need to be based on care plans, reports, and other types of information originating from different individuals. However, there is a common understanding that technology is an important facilitator in tackling this challenge. Technology already supports care processes and complements the role of people in many ways. For instance, it takes over tasks and helps to save time, obtain new insights and simplify complexity. Most of the time, using technology comes down to creating, collecting, analyzing and applying big data, or combinations of these. In fact, all our actions - in healthcare, as in society in general - are directed by subjective and objective data, which is often hidden in the minds of people, but also increasingly collected digitally. Until now, the use of different technologies and data is too often not integrated in the organization and put away in separate silos as the use of a technical instrument in care processes is often initiated for specific reasons that do not affect the entire organization or client population. Meanwhile though, more and more opportunities are coming up to connect the different data flows that exist in healthcare, and to utilize the data both organization-transcending as for the individual client. Developments in intelligent software systems AI, amongst others, offer the possibility to rapidly collect, integrate, exchange, edit and analyze large amounts of data. This allows people to respond more proactively to incidents, gain new insights about health, provide customized care and support and improve the cooperation between individuals and disciplines. However, many longterm care organizations in The Netherlands experience these opportunities as something elusive and find it hard to take advantage of them. Though many organizations in Dutch longterm care are interested in the exploration of data-driven healthcare, a common challenge is that enthusiastic innovators within care organizations often have limited time to invest in data-driven care, and do so alone or with the support of only few colleagues. Therefore, innovators from different organizations regularly come together within networks where they share experiences and experiment. At the same time, despite the promises of data-driven healthcare, there are many dilemmas around privacy, security, access to data, risk of stigmatization and medicalization and the increasing dependence on technology, for instance. When experimenting, the dilemmas should be taken seriously and in co-creation between multiple organizations, codes of conduct on these issues can be developed step-by-step. This paper will share some experiences and lessons learned, both by individual organizations and in workshops in which they collaborated. The approach is that by creating room for experimenting, starting small and sharing experiences with other parties, 'big data' can be made small. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]