IoT/Sensor-Based Infrastructures Promoting a Sense of Home, Independent Living, Comfort and Wellness

This paper presents the results of three interrelated studies concerning the specification and implementation of ambient assisted living (AAL)/Internet of Things (IoT)/sensor-based infrastructures, to support resident wellness and person-centered care delivery, in a residential care context. Overall, the paper reports on the emerging wellness management concept and IoT solution. The three studies adopt a stakeholder evaluation approach to requirements elicitation and solution design. Human factors research combines several qualitative human–machine interaction (HMI) design frameworks/methods, including realist ethnography, process mapping, persona-based design, and participatory design. Software development activities are underpinned by SCRUM/AGILE frameworks. Three structuring principles underpin the resident’s lived experience and the proposed ‘sensing’ framework. This includes (1) resident wellness, (2) the resident’s environment (i.e., room and broader social spaces which constitute ‘home’ for the resident), and (3) care delivery. The promotion of resident wellness, autonomy, quality of life and social participation depends on adequate monitoring and evaluation of information pertaining to (1), (2) and (3). Furthermore, the application of ambient assisted living technology in a residential setting depends on a clear definition of related care delivery processes and allied social and interpersonal communications. It is argued that independence (and quality of life for older adults) is linked to technology that enables interdependence, and specifically technology that supports social communication between key roles including residents, caregivers, and family members.

Entering the dialogue

Classic research and care traditions concerned with dementia (biomedical, psychological and sociological) have mainly focused on the person with dementia and his/her spousal caregiver as individuals living in parallel. That is, couples are not really considered as living-in-relationship. Researchers, for example, have examined the relative impact of burden and stress on people with dementia and their spouses. People living with dementia and their partners as care providers, however, are fundamentally living-in-relationship. In general, it is the historical and contextual bond found in the marital relationship, and in particular the commitment to the marriage, that influences how dementia is encountered and lived by couples. Relationships, as articulated in the marriage biography, allow us to understand dementia and its effect on the interaction of partners and families as a potentially important resource. The couples' marriage biography can potentially provide an understanding of the interaction between marital relationship (its quality) and dementia. The impact of dementia on the person/spouse and the marital relationship, as well as the impact of the marital relationship on the dementia experience, should be of central concern to researchers and health care providers.