Technology Trends
Can a Online Nature Environment Enhance Well-Being Among Individuals With Dementia?
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Lori Reynolds
Over 90% of people with dementia experience emotions of agitation and/or anxiety, with associated behaviors, that can be very difficult for caregivers to manage, creating high levels of stress and turnover among dementia care staff. In the United States there is prevalent use of psychotropic medications, and limited research to support many of the care strategies being used. However, research supports that when individuals with dementia have direct contact with nature stress, agitation, negative emotions, and the need for psychotropic medications are reduced. Research also support that some of these same benefits are found when simply viewing nature. This study explores how to create a online nature environment, and shares the results of a recent pilot study in which a online nature environment was used to reduce stress and stress-related emotions of anxiety and agitation among individuals with dementia. The pilot study used a crossover design, in which fourteen participants viewed both a high definition video of nature and a generational movie, three times each over the course of three weeks, for a minimum of ten minutes. Heart rate, anxiety, and agitation were assessed before and at ten minutes of participation in each condition. Results showed a statistically significant lowered heart rate, increased pleasure, and reduced anxiety associated with viewing nature compared to viewing the generational movie. Results of this pilot study are very promising that a relatively low-cost online nature environment, embedded within an existing memory care program, can enhance quality of life for people living with dementia.
Reconfigurations of Home/care in Smart Home Designs for Aging-in-place
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Kirsten Ellison, Barb Marshall
Technologies designed to allow for older adults to “age-in-place” safely and independently have experienced tremendous growth in the past five years (Orlov, 2019). Prominent companies that have emerged with ‘smart home’ devices for the older adult include CarePredict, Sensara, Billy, TruSense, Essence, LiliSmart, and Presence Pro Care. While many of these companies include devices that are also marketed to younger adults, such as thermostats, doorbells, and voice-activated hubs like Alexa and Google Home, they also, more significantly, add into their purview home sensors that are designed with a function unique to this demographic: the monitoring not of the home but its inhabitants. Drawing on Kim and Jasanoff’s (2015) notion of ‘sociotechnical imaginaries’, this paper explores the imagined spaces of aging in place with home sensor technology. Examining the promotional materials of a selection of home sensor technologies marketed to older adults and their caregivers, I highlight the kinds of homes, inhabitants and users that the devices evoke in their conceptual design. These devices, I argue, reconfigure the home into an active participant in the management of its inhabitants and care into an act of remote and constant surveillance by algorithms. As new policies emerge to assist older adults in their ability to stay in the home, we need to be more critical of the increasing turn to smart home technologies by taking into consideration the problematic assumptions that are imagined into their design and the many social, material, and emotional consequences of their adoption.
