Robot Companions for Stroke Therapy-the Acceptance of Assistive Robotics Among 80 Patients

Abstract

AGE-WELL NCE is a Canadian centre of excellence dedicated to improving quality of life for older adults. The Rural/ Remote and Indigenous Technology Needs Exploration (RRITE) is a multisite AGE-WELL project with research sites in Saskatchewan and Ontario, Canada. The Indigenous research explores how older Indigenous adults with dementia might be supported, through technology, to age in place. Using a combination of Indigenous research methodologies and community-based participatory action research, the research teams work continually, from proposal to dissemination, with community advisory groups to develop, direct and refine the research process. Advisory groups are composed of health care providers and Indigenous people with lived experience, as well as Elders. This multisite study considers qualitative data from focus groups and interviews with older Indigenous adults, their family members, care providers, and natural helpers from First Nations communities in Ontario and Saskatchewan. This paper presents the results related to technology needs, the accessibility of assistive technology within Indigenous communities, and the role technology may have in fulfilling the health and social needs of older Indigenous adults in Ontario and Saskatchewan. Understanding the unique needs of Indigenous older adults and their communities can lead to the development of culturally safe and appropriate cognitively assistive technology, which can greatly add to the literature on prevalence and perceptions of assistive technology use by Indigenous people. The neighborhood people live in as well as the existence of neighborhood networks can have a crucial impact on their quality of life. These neighborhood networks can be complemented and strengthened by digital neighborhood platforms, which additionally can enable people with mobility limitations to participate in social life and live self-determinedly. Therefore, the trans-disciplinary research project "QuartiersNETZ" ("Neighborhood NET") aims to develop networks and digital platforms in four urban neighborhoods in the Ruhr area in Germany. User participation in technology development processes has become more important. However, these involved users are often not representative of the heterogeneous potential user groups so that the actual circumstances and requirements are not met. To overcome this problem the project has explored different life situation types. On the basis of a representative survey within the case study neighborhoods with a random sample of in total 4,000 residents aged 50 years and older (response rate 29.7%, N=1,186) a hierarchical cluster analysis was conducted. Eight life situation types were identified based on the following characteristics: socioeconomic status, health, social relationships and housing conditions. In a next step, local actors selected three to four representatives for each cluster who were willing to participate in the digital platform development process. Qualitative interviews were performed in order to get to know their challenges ...

Implementation of Assistive Technologies and Robotics in Long-Term Care Facilities: A Three-Stage Assessment Based on Acceptance, Ethics, and Emotions

“…AT/AR already posed a controversial discussion about safety, social justice, usefulness and appropriateness in long-term care. In addition, discussions arose on questions of economic viability, customer acceptance, co-design and user impact (e.g., stress level) (Berkowsky et al, 2017;Chu et al, 2017;Kwon, 2017;Meyer and Fricke, 2017;Diefenbach, 2018;Merkel and Kucharski, 2019;Peine and Neven, 2020). All these aspects have already been explored in current research literature, even though a deeper understanding, for example, of ambivalent user acceptance is still needed (Hersh, 2015).…”