Ambient Assistive Technology Considered Harmful

Abstract

Abstract. Ambient assistive technology (AAT) is envisioned as a powerful tool for facing the growing demands the demographic change toward an aging society puts on care. While AAT is often expected to increase the quality of life of older people, this paper holds that relevant interventions often embody values that can contradict such visions, and in some cases even be harmful to care receivers. We argue that the strong focus AAT puts on illness and risk management reflects a medical model of care, which often disregards the psychosocial challenges that impairments and disabilities associated with old age can rise. We suggest that design of AAT could benefit from using the social model of care as design inspiration and value foundation. Such an approach puts focus on the person rather than the illness. The paper ends by providing a short description of work in which the social model of care is adopted as a basis for design of AAT.

Activity Support Framework for People with Dementia Based on Markov Decision Process

“…Existing research in AAL focuses on activity recognition and measuring biometric data from care recipients which can be interpreted to detect problem situations [3,6,8,9,17,23]. The Autominder does offer high level planning support by reminding users to initiate activities, but do not assist the persons in conducting actual activities [7].…”

“…In many cases aid devices focus on safety-critical aspects by sending out biometric data which health-care specialists or family caregivers need to interpret [3]. Each new aid device requires care recipients to learn and adapt the devices in their daily lives.…”