Background Many older adults choose to live independently in their homes for as long as possible, despite psychosocial and medical conditions that compromise their independence in daily living and safety. Faced with unprecedented challenges in allocating resources, home care administrators are increasingly open to using monitoring technologies known as ambient assisted living (AAL) to better support care recipients. To be effective, these technologies should be able to report clinically relevant changes to support decision making at an individual level. Objective The aim of this study is to examine the concurrent validity of AAL monitoring reports and information gathered by care professionals using triangulation. Methods This longitudinal single-case study spans over 490 days of monitoring a 90-year-old woman with Alzheimer disease receiving support from local health care services. A clinical nurse in charge of her health and social care was interviewed 3 times during the project. Linear mixed models for repeated measures were used to analyze each daily activity (ie, sleep, outing activities, periods of low mobility, cooking-related activities, hygiene-related activities). Significant changes observed in data from monitoring reports were compared with information gathered by the care professional to explore concurrent validity. Results Over time, the monitoring reports showed evolving trends in the care recipient’s daily activities. Significant activity changes occurred over time regarding sleep, outings, cooking, mobility, and hygiene-related activities. Although the nurse observed some trends, the monitoring reports highlighted information that the nurse had not yet identified. Most trends detected in the monitoring reports were consistent with the clinical information gathered by the nurse. In addition, the AAL system detected changes in daily trends following an intervention specific to meal preparation. Conclusions Overall, trends identified by AAL monitoring are consistent with clinical reports. They help answer the nurse’s questions and help the nurse develop interventions to maintain the care recipient at home. These findings suggest the vast potential of AAL technologies to support health care services and aging in place by providing valid and clinically relevant information over time regarding activities of daily living. Such data are essential when other sources yield incomplete information for decision making.

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Ambient Assisted Living (AAL) environments encompass technical systems and the Internet of Things (IoT) tools to support seniors in their daily routines. They aim to enable seniors to live independently and safely for as long as possible when faced declining physical or cognitive capacities. This work presents the design, development and deployment of an AAL system in the context of smart cities. The proposed architecture is based on microservices and software components. We examined the requirements and specifications of AAL systems in smart homes, in efforts to describe and evaluate how they would be transposable in the case of smart cities. The system has been tested and evaluated in the laboratory; it has been deployed in real life settings within city and is still in use by five elderly people.

Objective: The aim of this study was to conduct a scoping review of the literature to investigate non-pharmacological interventions for individuals with young-onset dementia and examine their success. Methods: A comprehensive review of the literature was conducted. The following databases were included in our search: Ovid Medline, PsycINFO, Pubmed, CINHAL. Studies were retained if they were 1) peer-reviewed; 2) published in English; 3) focused on non-pharmacological interventions; 4)designed for persons with dementia; and 5) diagnosis before the age of 65. Results: A total of 7 articles met our inclusion criteria and were included in the study. Of those, four consisted in social programs involving the community as part of the intervention, two focused on a cognitive based intervention and one focused on a cognitive behavioral intervention. The social interventions were successful in improving the mood and well-being of participants as well as providing respite for caregivers. The cognitive interventions were successful in improving perceived functional outcomes and affective symptoms of participants. Discussion: A discussion of each intervention including their benefits for individuals with young-onset dementia and their caregivers is presented.

As rehabilitation specialists, occupational therapy practitioners play a gateway role regarding recommendation of various technologies for homecare. However, no study has investigated current occupational therapy practices concerning information and communication technology (ICT) for older adults in Canada. The objective of this study was to identify Canadian occupational therapists’ (OTs) knowledge and practices of ICT with older adults as well as factors associated with its recommendation. A Canada-wide, cross-sectional, online survey was conducted. Of 387 OTs, only 12.4% reported recommending ICT in practice. ICTs supporting communication and cognition were the main types recommended. The reported barriers to use in practice differed between ICT familiar users and nonusers. Multivariate logistic regression analyses showed that clinicians with more years of clinical experience were more likely to recommend ICT. Clinicians’ services, work environments, and client diagnosis were also factors associated with ICT recommendation. Additional research is needed to understand how to overcome barriers to ICT recommendation in OT practice.

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Background Although assistive technology for cognition (ATC) has enormous potential to help individuals who have sustained a severe traumatic brain injury (TBI) prepare meals safely, no ATC has yet been developed to assist in this activity for this specific population. Objective This study aims to conduct a needs analysis as a first step in the design of an ATC to support safe and independent meal preparation for persons with severe TBI. This included identifying cooking-related risks to depict future users’ profiles and establishing the clinical requirements of the ATC. Methods In a user-centered design study, the needs of 3 future users were evaluated in their real-world environments (supported-living residence) using an ecological assessment of everyday activities, a review of their medical files, a complete neuropsychological test battery, individual interviews, observational field notes, and log journals with the residents, their families, and other stakeholders from the residence (eg, staff and health professionals). The needs analysis was guided by the Disability Creation Process framework. Results The results showed that many issues had to be considered for the development of the ATC for the 3 residents and other eventual users, including cognitive issues such as distractibility and difficulty remembering information over a short period of time and important safety issues, such as potential food poisoning and risk of fire. This led to the identification of 2 main clinical requirements for the ATC: providing cognitive support based on evidence-based cognitive rehabilitation to facilitate meal preparation and ensuring safety at each step of the meal preparation task. Conclusions This needs analysis identified the main requirements for an ATC designed to support meal preparation for persons with severe TBI. Future research will focus on implementing the ATC in the residence and evaluating its usability.