Using context awareness within the 'Smart home' environment to support social care for adults with dementia

摘要

Sustaining adults experiencing dementia in the community requires interagency and intraagency collaboration. Information and communication technologies (ICT) potentially contribute positively to this scenario, assisting with risk management, supporting individual autonomous environmental interaction and informing the care process. The ubiquitous home has emerged utilising discrete sensor devices, networked to the care provider generating both synchronous and asynchronous data reflecting in-house tenant activity. This paper reports the findings of a qualitative study investigating care staff perspectives on user interface design, and critical core information to deliver an embedded ICT solution. The research was undertaken at a community based supported housing scheme for adults with dementia. Each dwelling incorporates best practice housing design for adults with dementia, complimented with a range of discrete sensors networked to the onsite staff office. The scheme strives to support tenant routine activity with daily living tasks, whilst minimising staff intrusion. Synchronous computer generated information notifies staff about tenant routine activity, deviations outside the norm and specified alerts relating to risk scenarios. The findings of this study advanced staff user interface design, database software application and subsequently influenced how computational data is used to provide evidence to both inform the tenant care plan and adjust care provision.