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COOP 2016: Proceedings of the 12th International Conference on the Design of Cooperative Systems, 23-27 May 2016, Trento, Italy pp 155–172Cite as

Supporting Informal Carers’ Independency Through Coordinated Care

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Abstract

Dependency research in informal care has a long history. Studies within this area usually focus on the dependencies that care receivers have in relation to those providing the care: the informal carers. They usually take for granted the dependencies that informal care brings upon the carers. This paper draws attention to these important (unpaid) workers of our current society and discusses how engaging in caring can constrain one of their most valued personal attribute: their independency. Not only that, the paper discusses how coordinated care can come to the rescue of some of this independency, introducing a few simple but yet effective ICT solutions that can create opportunities for it. The findings presented in this paper come from rich ethnographic data collected within TOPIC, a European AAL joint project conducted across Austria, France and Germany. Finally, we show our research framework in the setting of informal care with the complexity and dimensions in human and non-human supported caring activities.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    For more information visit the TOPIC project (AAL-2012-5-169) website available at http://topic-aal.eu

  2. 2.

    Research in informal care has argued that, although it is not properly paid, it should be seen as work, because of its high economic value [13, 14]. In so doing, informal care has previously been defined as: “A quasi-market composite commodity consisting of heterogeneous parts produced (paid or unpaid) by one or more members of the social environment of the care recipient as a result of the care demands of the care recipient” [van den Berg et al. 2004 cited in 14, 169–170]. Arno et al. [13], for instance, estimated that the economic value associated with informal care in the USA in 1997 was around $196 billion. The authors conclude that informal care should be considered the bedrock for USA chronic care system and that proper support should be provided to informal carers.

  3. 3.

    All participants’ names used for the paper are pseudonyms, used to assure our participants’ confidentiality.

  4. 4.

    All quotes presented in this paper have been freely translated from German.

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Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the Ambient Assisted Living Joint Programme for financial support, the members of the TOPIC consortium for the insights and input in the project development, and all the informal carers participating in the project without whom this research would not be possible.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Design and Assessment of Technology, Multidisciplinary Design Group, Vienna University of Technology, Favoritenstraße 9-11/187, 1040, Vienna, Austria

    Aparecido Fabiano Pinatti de Carvalho, Hilda Tellioğlu, Susanne Hensely-Schinkinger & Michael Habiger

Authors
  1. Aparecido Fabiano Pinatti de Carvalho
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  2. Hilda Tellioğlu
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  3. Susanne Hensely-Schinkinger
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  4. Michael Habiger
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Aparecido Fabiano Pinatti de Carvalho .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. InterAction Laboratory Department of Information Engineering and Computer Science, University of Trento, Trento, Italy

    Antonella De Angeli

  2. LERO Department of Computer Science & Information Systems, University of Limerick, Limerick, Ireland

    Liam Bannon

  3. Department of Communication Science, University of Siena, Siena, Italy

    Patrizia Marti

  4. Department of Information Engineering and Computer Science, University of Trento, Trento, Italy

    Silvia Bordin

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de Carvalho, A.F.P., Tellioğlu, H., Hensely-Schinkinger, S., Habiger, M. (2016). Supporting Informal Carers’ Independency Through Coordinated Care. In: De Angeli, A., Bannon, L., Marti, P., Bordin, S. (eds) COOP 2016: Proceedings of the 12th International Conference on the Design of Cooperative Systems, 23-27 May 2016, Trento, Italy. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-33464-6_10

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-33464-6_10

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