Evaluating Engagement in Technology-Supported Social Interaction by People Living with Dementia in Residential Care

Abstract

Technologies can support the well-being of people living with dementia in residential care by fostering meaningful interactions through multimodal and playful features. This article presents the evaluation of A Better Visit, an app that aims at engaging residents and visitors in shared activities. We define engagement in terms of dyadic interactions with the interface of the device, and interactions within the social context of the care home. We generated two Motivational Models that describe different perspectives of how people engaged with the system: the first was built with the design team, and the second was built using the first Motivational Model as a sensitising concept for the analysis of data from four care homes that used the app for periods of three months. Our findings show that the facilitation of activities plays a relevant role for engaging in social interaction. We discuss how technologies can contribute to engaging people living with dementia in social interaction: firstly, facilitation can be understood as a concept that is supported by people and technology. Secondly, we discuss the influence of the social context of the setting and the understandings of the individual in how people assess the engagement of the residents in social interaction.