Abstract
Although technology has the potential to promote aging in place, the use of technology remains scarce among community-living older adults with dementia. A reason might be that many stakeholders are involved who all have a different perspective on technology use (i.e., needs, wishes, attitudes, possibilities, and difficulties). We systematically searched the literature in order to provide an overview of perspectives of different stakeholders on technology use among community-living older adults with dementia. After selection, 46 studies were included. We mainly found perspectives of informal caregivers and, to a lesser extent, of persons with dementia and formal caregivers. Perspectives of suppliers of technology were not present. Shared perspectives among persons with dementia and informal and formal caregivers were, among other things, ease of use, stability and flexibility of technology, importance of privacy, and confidentiality. We also found that among older persons, fun and pleasure, in addition to enhancing freedom and independence, facilitates technology use. Informal caregivers’ peace of mind and relief of burden also appeared to be important in using technologies. Formal caregivers value the potential of technologies to improve monitoring and communication. Insight in shared, and conflicting perspectives of stakeholders are essential to enhance the use of technology.
Highlights
Older adults prefer to live independently and to stay in their own home if possible, referred to as ‘aging in place’ [1,2]
Stakeholders who we considered to be involved in the process of technology use among persons with dementia were as follows: persons with dementia themselves, informal caregivers, formal caregivers (e.g., nursing staff, general practitioners (GPs), physicians, and home care staff), management of healthcare organizations, and suppliers of technology
It differed per study whether data collection took place among persons with dementia or whether a proxy served as input for the perspective of persons with dementia
Summary
Older adults prefer to live independently and to stay in their own home if possible, referred to as ‘aging in place’ [1,2]. Aging in place is preferred by older adults themselves, and encouraged by policy makers, because of the increasing number of older people within Western societies, the shortage of health care professionals, and the increase of healthcare costs [3]. Smart homes and technologies are often proposed as solutions for promoting aging in place [5,6]. Technologies may be useful in monitoring older adults with dementia in order to improve quality of life, promote physical independence, or to reduce caregiver burden [5,7,8,9]. GPS technologies may Healthcare 2019, 7, 73; doi:10.3390/healthcare7020073 www.mdpi.com/journal/healthcare
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