Abstract
Ambient Assisted Living (AAL) systems integrate stand-alone assistive technologies with smart homes and telehealth. This paper reports on a study that focused on the envisioned impact of AAL systems on the lives of end-users using an alternate research approach. A qualitative design was used and semi-structured interviews were conducted with 12 older adults in Southwestern British Columbia, Canada. While a high degree of acceptance regarding AAL was found in the present study, the research also discovered that such technologies have the potential to profoundly affect, both positively and negatively, participants meaning and experience of the home environment. These findings suggest that research and development paradigms need to be expanded if our intention is to produce a product that will be accepted and helpful to the end-user.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Sixsmith, A., Sixsmith, J.: Ageing in Place in the United Kingdom. Ageing International 32, 219–235 (2008)
SOPRANO (2008), http://www.soprano-ip.org/echome.asp?lang=1
Center for Aging Services Technology (2008), http://www.agingtech.org/contact.aspx
Brownsell, S., Blackburn, S., Hawley, M.: An Evaluation of the Second and Third Generation Telecare Services in Older People’s Housing. Journal of Telemedicine and Telecare 14, 8–12 (2007)
Demiris, G., Rantz, M., Aud, M., Marek, M., Tyers, H., Skubic, et al.: Older Adults’ Attitudes Towards and Perceptions of ‘Smart Home’ Technologies: A Pilot Stud. Medical Informatics 29, 87–94 (2004)
Levy, S., Jack, N., Bradley, D., Morison, M., Swanston, M.: Perspectives on Telecare: The Client View. Journal of Telemedicine and Telecare 9, 156–160 (2002)
Mahmood, A., Yamamoto, T., Lee, M., Steggell, C.: Perceptions and Use of Gerontechnology: Implications for Aging in Place. Journal of Housing for the Elderly 22, 104–126 (2008)
Mann, W., Marchant, T., Machiko, T., Fraas, L., Stanton, K.: Elder Acceptance of Health Monitoring Devices in the Home. Case Management Journals 3, 91–98 (2002)
Percival, J., Hanson, J.: Big Brother or Brave New World? Telecare and Its Implications for Older People’s Independence and Social Inclusion. Critical Social Policy 26, 888–909 (2006)
Reder, S., Ambler, G., Philipose, M., Hedrick, S.: Technology and Long-term Care (TLC): A Pilot Evaluation of Remote Monitoring of Elders. Gerontechnology 9, 18–31 (2010)
Sixsmith, A.: An Evaluation of an Intelligent Home Monitoring System. Journal of Telemedicine and Telecare 6, 63–72 (2000)
Sixsmith, A., Mueller, S., Lull, F., Klein, M., Bierhoff, I., Deleaney, S., Byrne, P., Sproll, S., Savage, R., Avatangelou, E.: A User-Driven Approach to Developing Ambient Assisted Living Systems for Older People: The SOPRANO Project. In: Soar, J., Swindell, R., Tsang, P. (eds.) Intelligent Technologies for Bridging the Grey Digital Divide, pp. 30–45. IGI Global, Australia (2010)
Creswell, J.: Research Design: Qualitative, Quantitative, and Mixed Methods Approaches. Sage Publications, Thousand Oaks (2003)
Spirduso, W., Frances, K., MacRae, P.: Physical dimensions of Aging, 2nd edn. Human Kinetics Publishers, Champaign (2005)
Leith, K.: Home is where the heart is…or is it? A phenomenological exploration of the meaning of home for older women in congregate housing. Journal of Aging Studies 20, 317–333 (2006)
Sixsmith, J.: The Meaning of Home: An Exploratory Study of Environmental Experience. Journal of Environmental Psychology 6, 281–298 (1986)
QSR International, http://www.qsrinternational.com/products_nvivo.aspx
Ellul, J.: The Technological Order. Technology and Culture 3, 394–422 (1962)
Ballinger, C., Payne, S.: The Construction of the Risk of Falling Among and By Older People. Ageing and Society 22, 305–321 (2002)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2011 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this paper
Cite this paper
Beringer, R., Sixsmith, A., Campo, M., Brown, J., McCloskey, R. (2011). The “Acceptance” of Ambient Assisted Living: Developing an Alternate Methodology to This Limited Research Lens. In: Abdulrazak, B., Giroux, S., Bouchard, B., Pigot, H., Mokhtari, M. (eds) Toward Useful Services for Elderly and People with Disabilities. ICOST 2011. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 6719. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-21535-3_21
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-21535-3_21
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-642-21534-6
Online ISBN: 978-3-642-21535-3
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)