Perspectives of Stakeholders on Technology Use in the Care of Community-Living Older Adults with Dementia: A Systematic Literature Review

Abstract

Although technology has the potential to promote aging in place, the use of technology remains scarce among community-living older adults with dementia. A reason might be that many stakeholders are involved who all have a different perspective on technology use (i.e., needs, wishes, attitudes, possibilities, and difficulties). We systematically searched the literature in order to provide an overview of perspectives of different stakeholders on technology use among community-living older adults with dementia. After selection, 46 studies were included. We mainly found perspectives of informal caregivers and, to a lesser extent, of persons with dementia and formal caregivers. Perspectives of suppliers of technology were not present. Shared perspectives among persons with dementia and informal and formal caregivers were, among other things, ease of use, stability and flexibility of technology, importance of privacy, and confidentiality. We also found that among older persons, fun and pleasure, in addition to enhancing freedom and independence, facilitates technology use. Informal caregivers’ peace of mind and relief of burden also appeared to be important in using technologies. Formal caregivers value the potential of technologies to improve monitoring and communication. Insight in shared, and conflicting perspectives of stakeholders are essential to enhance the use of technology.

Evaluating the Facilitators, Barriers, and Medical Outcomes Commensurate with the Use of Assistive Technology to Support People with Dementia: A Systematic Review Literature

“…The findings in this review are also commensurate with four others from the last year, and the AT reviewed are similar [66][67][68][69][70]. AT interventions can be beneficial to quality of life, social interaction, reducing neuropsychiatric symptoms such as depression, anxiety, and agitation, but continued use of AT becomes problematic due to the progressive nature of dementia [69,70].…”

“…AT interventions can be beneficial to quality of life, social interaction, reducing neuropsychiatric symptoms such as depression, anxiety, and agitation, but continued use of AT becomes problematic due to the progressive nature of dementia [69,70]. Both carers and PWD shared observations on aspects of AT such as ease of use, stability and flexibility of technology, and the importance of privacy and confidentiality [67,68]. One finding that was not in this review was an improvement in pain management, as was found in a review from 2019 [69].…”

Creating Age-Friendly Communities: Housing and Technology

“…This special issue of Healthcare on "Creating Age-Friendly Communities: Housing and Technology" is timely, comprising twelve papers [16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27] that traverse and intersect across the fields of gerontology, health and social care, social sciences and gerontechnology.…”

“…Thus, the accepted papers surrounding dementia have focused on the perspectives of healthcare professionals in conjunction with meaningful activities for individuals diagnosed with dementia residing in a nursing home environment [16,25], and installing and using aids and adaptations within the home to create a physical environment that is more dementia-friendly [19]. Furthermore, exploring and understanding technology use associated with care of individuals living with dementia in the community from the perspective of stakeholders [23] is equally important as a systematic review to ascertain the current landscape and offer readers the ability to see what areas need greater improvement and expansion.…”

“…Five papers [16,17,19,20,23] take the standpoint of technology use and deployment within various social contexts as a means of contributing to the national and international discussions and debates surrounding the age-friendly landscape. Across these accepted papers, we have demonstrated the growth in multi-and-cross disciplinary research, which intersects at various disciplines across academia but also at policy levels associated with national [29] and devolved governments [30,31].…”