Older adults’ attitudes and preferences regarding a multifunctional wellness tool: a pilot study

Privacy Barriers in Health Monitoring: Scoping Review

BACKGROUND

Health monitoring technologies help patients and older adults live better and stay longer in their own homes. However, there are many factors influencing their adoption of these technologies. Privacy is one of them.

OBJECTIVE

The aim of this study was to provide an overview of the privacy barriers in health monitoring from current research, analyze the factors that influence patients to adopt assisted living technologies, provide a social psychological explanation, and propose suggestions for mitigating these barriers in future research.

METHODS

A scoping review was conducted, and web-based literature databases were searched for published studies to explore the available research on privacy barriers in a health monitoring environment.

RESULTS

In total, 65 articles met the inclusion criteria and were selected and analyzed. Contradictory findings and results were found in some of the included articles. We analyzed the contradictory findings and provided possible explanations for current barriers, such as demographic differences, information asymmetry, researchers' conceptual confusion, inducible experiment design and its psychological impacts on participants, researchers' confirmation bias, and a lack of distinction among different user roles. We found that few exploratory studies have been conducted so far to collect privacy-related legal norms in a health monitoring environment. Four research questions related to privacy barriers were raised, and an attempt was made to provide answers.

CONCLUSIONS

This review highlights the problems of some research, summarizes patients' privacy concerns and legal concerns from the studies conducted, and lists the factors that should be considered when gathering and analyzing people's privacy attitudes.

Preventiometer, a Novel Wellness Assessment Device, Used With Healthy Volunteers: A Phase 2 Study

Background

We previously reported on a pilot study to assess the incorporation of a novel wellness assessment device, the Preventiometer (iPEx5 GmbH, Greifswald, Germany), into an academic medical practice. The present follow-up study expands on those data and evaluates the acceptability of the assessment process in a larger sample population.

Objective

The aim of this study was to evaluate participant satisfaction with the Preventiometer wellness assessment.

Methods

A total of 60 healthy volunteers participated. Each participant underwent a comprehensive wellness assessment with the Preventiometer and received data from more than 30 diagnostic tests. A 32-question survey (with a numeric rating scale from 0 to 10) was used to rate the wellness assessment tests and participants' impressions of the wellness assessment.

Results

Each assessment had a significantly higher rating than 7 (P < .001), and the majority of participants agreed or strongly agreed that they were satisfied (98.3%), and they strongly agreed that they were engaged the entire time (93.2%), and liked the instant test results feature of the Preventiometer device (93.2%).

Conclusion

This study confirms findings from our previous pilot study regarding the feasibility of the Preventiometer as a wellness assessment tool. The study further demonstrated that 98% of participants were satisfied with the assessment and that all of them would recommend it to others.

Ethics and acceptance of smart homes for older adults

Societal challenges associated with caring for the physical and mental health of older adults worldwide have grown at an unprecedented pace, increasing demand for health-care services and technologies Despite the development of several assistive systems tailored to older adults, the rate of adoption of health technologies is low. This review discusses the ethical and acceptability challenges resulting in low adoption of health technologies specifically focused on smart homes for older adults. The findings have been structured in two categories: Ethical Considerations (Privacy, Social Support, and Autonomy) and Technology Aspects (User Context, Usability, and Training). The findings conclude that older adults community is more likely to adopt assistive systems when four key criteria are met. The technology should: be personalized toward their needs, protect their dignity and independence, provide user control, and not be isolating. Finally, we recommend researchers and developers working on assistive systems to: (1) provide interfaces via smart devices to control and configure the monitoring system with feedback for the user, (2) include various sensors/devices to architect a smart home solution in a way that is easy to integrate in daily life, and (3) define policies about data ownership.

Evaluation of a Novel Wellness Assessment Device (Preventiometer): A Feasibility Pilot Study

Background

Periodic wellness assessments can provide an estimate of a person’s relative risks for major diseases, but wellness visits are underused. Our suggestion is to use a comprehensive device during a single visit.

Objective

The goal of this pilot study was to evaluate the feasibility of a novel one-stop wellness device (Preventiometer; iPEx5 GmbH, Greifswald, Germany) for performing multiple tests and providing a comprehensive wellness assessment in a short period.

Methods

A Preventiometer was used to provide wellness assessments for 10 healthy volunteers who then answered a 25-question survey to rate their satisfaction with the testing and their overall impression.

Results

All volunteers agreed or strongly agreed with the following: The assessment reports were easy to understand, the Preventiometer met their satisfaction, the participants were comfortable during the assessment, and all measurements and testing were well coordinated. Participants liked the instant test result feature. Most (90%) agreed that the machine was useful for a quick health assessment for busy people, and 70% felt that it was time efficient.

Conclusion

In this feasibility pilot study, the Preventiometer performed multiple tasks and provided a comprehensive wellness assessment in a short period. Participants reported remarkably high satisfaction with the tests. A larger study is needed to prove that this is a pragmatic approach to help individuals improve their health.

Nothing Else Matters! Trade-Offs Between Perceived Benefits and Barriers of AAL Technology Usage

Ambient assisted living (AAL) technologies present one approach to counter the challenges of demographic change in terms of an aging population, rising care needs, and lacking care personnel by supporting (older) people in need of care and enabling a longer and more independent staying at own home. Although the number of studies focusing on AAL users' acceptance and perception has increased in the last years, trade-off decisions-the weighing of perceived benefits and barriers of technology usage-have not been studied so far. Nevertheless, this is of high relevance: A realistic evaluation of adoption behaviors in different stakeholders (patients, care personnel) requires an understanding of exactly the weighing process of benefits against the barriers in line with the decision of the final willingness to use AAL technology. The current study applied a conjoint analysis approach and investigates people's decision behavior to use an AAL system for a family member in need of care. Study participants (n = 140) had to decide between realistic care scenarios consisting of different options of two benefits (increase in safety, relief of caring burden of relatives) and two barriers (access to personal data and data handling) of technology usage. Results revealed data access and privacy to be most relevant for the decision to use AAL technology at home. However, care experience essentially influenced the decision patterns. For the care experienced group, data access should be limited to most trusted persons and close relatives, rather than to medical professionals. The most important reasons to use AAL are the emotional relief and the felt safety for the person in care. For care novices, in contrast, data access should be in the exclusive responsibility of medical professionals. The reasons that militate in favor of using AAL technology are the increase in process efficiency and medical safety. The results are useful to develop user-tailored technology concepts and derive user-specific communication guidelines within and across clinical and home care contexts.