Accepted for/Published in: JMIR Aging
Date Submitted: Jun 11, 2021
Date Accepted: Dec 27, 2021
Date Submitted to PubMed: Jan 3, 2022
Technology-Mediated Enrichment in Aged Care: Survey and Interview Study
ABSTRACT
Background:
Digital technologies such as virtual reality, humanoid robots and digital companion pets have the potential to provide social and emotional enrichment for people living in aged care. However, there is currently limited knowledge about how technologies are being used to provide enrichment, what benefits they provide, and what challenges occur when deploying these technologies in aged care settings.
Objective:
This study aimed to investigate how digital technologies are being used for social and emotional enrichment in the Australian aged care industry. It further aimed to identify the benefits and challenges of using technology for enrichment in aged care.
Methods:
An online survey (N=20) was distributed to people working in the Australian aged care sector. The survey collected information about the types of technologies being deployed and the perceived value of these technologies. The survey was followed by interviews (N=12) with aged care workers and technology developers to investigate their experiences of deploying technologies with older adults living in aged care. Data were analysed through summary statistics and an in-depth thematic analysis.
Results:
The survey revealed that a range of commercial technologies, such as virtual reality, tablet devices and mobile phones, are being used in aged care to support social activities and to provide entertainment. Respondents had differing views about the value of emerging technologies such as virtual reality, social robots, robot pets, but were more united in their views about the value of videoconferencing. Interviews revealed four kinds of technology-mediated enrichment experiences: enhancing social engagement, virtually leaving the care home, reconnecting with personal interests, and providing entertainment and distraction. Our analysis identified five challenges or barriers: resource constraints, selecting appropriate devices and applications, client frailty, limited staff and organisational support, and resistance from families.
Conclusions:
This study demonstrates that various technologies can be used in aged care to create personally meaningful enrichment experiences for aged care clients. To maximise the effectiveness of technology-mediated enrichment, we argue that a person-centred care approach is crucial. While enrichment experiences can be created using available technologies, they need to be carefully selected and co-deployed with aged care clients. However, the organisational context can be a barrier for effectively using individual technology-based activities in psychosocial care. Significant changes may be required within organisations to allow caregivers to facilitate individual technology-based activities for enrichment.
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Copyright
© The authors. All rights reserved. This is a privileged document currently under peer-review/community review (or an accepted/rejected manuscript). Authors have provided JMIR Publications with an exclusive license to publish this preprint on it's website for review and ahead-of-print citation purposes only. While the final peer-reviewed paper may be licensed under a cc-by license on publication, at this stage authors and publisher expressively prohibit redistribution of this draft paper other than for review purposes.