Examining Mobile Technologies to Support Older Adults With Dementia Through the Lens of Personhood and Human Needs: Scoping Review

Abstract

BackgroundWith the world’s rapidly growing older adult population, there is an increase in the number of people living with dementia. This growth leads to a strain on their caregivers and our health care system and to an increased attention on mitigating strain by using mobile technology to sustain the independence of people with dementia. However, less attention is given to whether these technologies meet the stated and unstated needs of people with dementia.ObjectiveThe aim of this study was to provide an overview of the current research on mobile technologies for people with dementia, considering the current research through the lens of personhood and human needs, and to identify any gaps that represent research opportunities.MethodsWe performed a systematic search in Medical Literature Analysis and Retrieval System Online (MEDLINE), Web of Science, PsycINFO, Cumulative Index of Nursing and Allied Health Literature (CINAHL), Excerpta Medica dataBASE (EMBASE), and the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL) in October 2018. We screened 5560 articles and identified 24 that met our inclusion and exclusion criteria. We then performed thematic analysis to organize the articles by the types of support mobile technologies provide and mapped those types of support to human needs to identify the gaps in support.ResultsArticles described research on mobile technologies that support people with dementia to (1) perform daily activities, (2) maintain social interaction, (3) aid memory, (4) engage in leisure activities, (5) track location, and (6) monitor health. At least one type of support mapped to each human need, with most supporting lower-level needs such as physiological and safety needs. Little attention seems to be paid to personhood.ConclusionsMobile technologies that support daily activities, relationships, memory, leisure activities, health, and safety can partially compensate for decreased function owing to dementia, but the human needs of people with dementia are often not adequately considered. Most technologies support basic physiological and safety needs, whereas many pay little attention to higher-level needs such as self-esteem and agency. Important research opportunities include using person-centered methods to develop technology to meet higher-level needs and to preserve personhood by incorporating human and psychological needs of people with dementia along with ethical considerations.

Perceived Need and Acceptability of an App to Support Activities of Daily Living in People With Cognitive Impairment and Their Carers: Pilot Survey Study

“…However, the low-interest levels in this study point to a barrier to technology adoption. Studies have found that learning to use new technologies can call an older adult’s attention to their diminishing memory and functioning [ 14 ], and it is possible that participants in this study were responding to such a recognition with denial of their need for assistive apps. It is clear from this study that simply demonstrating the functionality of assistive technologies is not enough to spark interest in their use, and that it may even turn potential consumers away if their use is perceived to be demeaning or to highlight impairments [ 12 ].…”

Enabling Older Adults’ Health Self-Management through Self-Report and Visualization—A Systematic Literature Review

“…For example, a recent literature review studied the possible barriers for older adults to use mobile technology [ 116 ], and another study evaluated the effects of technology-based self-monitoring that intend to improve health in middle-aged and older adults [ 117 ]. Other works on mobile technology have focused on specific aspects of older adult health, such as pain [ 17 ], dementia [ 26 ], or falls [ 22 ]. Unlike these studies, we present a systematic review of the literature on mobile health technology for older adults with a focus on self-reporting and data visualization.…”

“…Previous studies on mobile technology for health monitoring of older adults have focused on mobile applications to assess balance as a risk factor for falls [ 22 ], on health monitoring in the home [ 23 ], on tools for the support of diseases or health conditions of older adults such as pain [ 17 ], cardiovascular disease [ 24 ], mental problems [ 25 , 26 ]. This systematic review aimed to collate studies of mobile technology designed for the health support of older adults, focusing on the input/output aspects of the technologies, that is, identifying whether these technologies allow older adults to visualize monitored information and whether they can enter complementary data such as context or feelings.…”

Usability and Acceptance of the Embodied Conversational Agent Anne by People with Dementia and their Caregivers: an exploratory study in home environment settings (Preprint)

“…This means that technologies must continue to monitor health and safety as primary needs, but it is necessary to support and maintain physical and mental capacity throughout the life-course by providing opportunities for leisure and social activities to facilitate inclusion, participation and thus reduce loneliness and social isolation [34]. Supporting higher level needs such as belonging, self-esteem, identity and self-actualization [35] is the aim of the next generation of technologies. Older adults are bearers of value for the design of technologies, and the beneficiaries of such systems.…”