I-CARE is a hand-held activation system that allows professional and informal caregivers to cognitively and socially activate people with dementia in joint activation sessions without special training or expertise. I-CARE consists of an easy-to-use tablet application that presents activation content and a server-based backend system that securely manages the contents and events of activation sessions. It tracks various sources of explicit and implicit feedback from user interactions and different sensors to estimate which content is successful in activating individual users. Over the course of use, I-CARE’s recommendation system learns about the individual needs and resources of its users and automatically personalizes the activation content. In addition, information about past sessions can be retrieved such that activations seamlessly build on previous sessions while eligible stakeholders are informed about the current state of care and daily form of their protegees. In addition, caregivers can connect with supervisors and professionals through the I-CARE remote calling feature, to get activation sessions tracked in real time via audio and video support. In this way, I-CARE provides technical support for a decentralized and spontaneous formation of ad hoc activation groups and fosters tight engagement of the social network and caring community. By these means, I-CARE promotes new care infrastructures in the community and the neighborhood as well as relieves professional and informal caregivers.

Abstract:In the project I-CARE a technical system for tablet devices is developed that captures the personal needs and skills of people with dementia. The system provides activation content such as music videos, biographical photographs and quizzes on various topics of interest to people with dementia, their families and professional caregivers. To adapt the system, the activation content is adjusted to the daily condition of individual users. For this purpose, emotions are automatically detected through facial expressions, motion, and voice. The daily interactions of the users with the tablet devices are documented in log files which can be merged into an event list. In this paper, we propose an advanced format for event lists and a data analysis strategy. A transformation scheme is developed in order to obtain datasets with features and time series for popular methods of data mining. The proposed methods are applied to analysing the interactions of people with dementia with the I-CARE tablet device. We show how the new format of event lists and the innovative transformation scheme can be used to compress the stored data, to identify groups of users, and to model changes of user behaviour. As the I-CARE user studies are still ongoing, simulated benchmark log files are applied to illustrate the data mining strategy. We discuss possible solutions to challenges that appear in the context of I-CARE and that are relevant to a broad range of applications.

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Abstract. One of the central objectives of gerontology is to provide categories and criteria for practical application. In contrast, cultural anthropology describes and interprets processes observed in various practical contexts but does not aim to create practical applications. For concepts such as “culture,” this discrepancy in goals might be the source of misunderstandings and even conflicting definitions. Bringing together the perspectives of both disciplines on culture, this paper illustrates the pitfalls of an understanding of culture grounded in geographical origins. It focuses on the situation in Germany and thereby addresses a universal problem using certain conceptions of culture in the context of aging and migration. In conclusion, it presents alternative approaches, while also addressing methodological issues.

There are many different anthropological traditions of material culture studies in Europe, as well as beyond. And yet the materialities of age and ageing nevertheless tend to be neglected in anthropological studies of ageing-related matters. Through a range of case studies, this special issue of AJEC addresses this gap. The articles consider a diversity of theories, methodologies and empirical approaches to better understanding European landscapes of care and pressing gerontological concerns.