Aging in Place Together: The Journey Towards Adoption and Acceptance of Stairlifts in Multi-Resident Homes

Abstract

Stairlifts are a widely-used technology in the home that help people with mobility issues to go up and down stairs. However, it is unclear how stairlifts are experienced by all household members and what this understanding implies for home healthcare technologies. We investigated the impact of stairlift installations on older adults' households in the UK through a qualitative study investigating the lived experience of the adoption and acceptance of this technology. Interviews and focus groups with primary users, household residents and service providers showed how the wider household identify misalignments between simplified stairlift installation models from service providers and describe a more complex, nuanced emotional journey which involves decision making, conflict and trauma and catharsis and independence. Findings provide transferrable outcomes for the smart home domain by highlighting the multi-resident home, the emotional intrusiveness of home healthcare technologies and the diversity that comes with providing care, unique to every household.

Explanation before Adoption: Supporting Informed Consent for Complex Machine Learning and IoT Health Platforms

“…This shows the importance of timing of the onboarding process beyond the explanation session, giving space for reflection beyond the explanation and allowing for households to discuss adoption of these platforms in their domestic settings, which are often shared. The process towards the adoption of domestic health technology has been shown to be a temporal and emotional journey [64]. We have encountered this even at the very beginning of the informed consent process of complex health platforms.…”

Symposium: Workgroup on Interactive Systems in Healthcare (WISH)

“…(4) New healthcare technologies that connect people, highlighting the key role of care in healthcare within the context of aging societies worldwide, with opportunities for human-centered approaches to facilitate care, particularly informal and social care. Collectively, these interactive healthcare technologies have introduced substantial coordination challenges among individuals and their care networks: families, clinical providers, and greater institutional systems [1][2][3]. They have also posed critical questions around whose health and wellbeing are being prioritized or ignored by these structures, and how or whether technology can abate these issues.…”