Abstract
Background: There are many assistive and smart home technologies, but a residential gateway that con-nects them and thus creates an interoperable and adapt-able technology bundle for older adults is still miss-ing. Within the project gAALaxy, funded by the Euro-pean AAL programme, such a bundle was developed and evaluated. The main research questions regarding informal carers focused on the usability of the bundle, perceived effects on well-being and quality of life vari-ables, as well as different care aspects.
Method: The technologies were evaluated in an ex-ploratory field study. Community-dwelling older adults and their informal carers from Austria and Italy tested a bundle, consisting of an emergency watch, a fall detec-tor and a smart home system, for six up to 18 months. The trial period was conducted in two phases, with the middleware of the bundle being improved before the second phase. Here, we present parts of the results, i.e. the analyses of a questionnaire filled in by 38 informal carers. It measured attitudes towards technology, the perceived impact of the bundle on the older adults and themselves, and the perceived usability and ease of use of the bundle. In pilot phase two we also asked partic-ipants about their willingness to pay for the technolo-gies.
Key results: Statistical analyses showed that there were virtually no significant differences between phase 1 and 2 regarding the perceptions of informal carers. Surveying the impact of the bundle on different vari-ables across both phases, we found mostly positive val-ues though. The perceived effects on care quality, ease of use, peace of mind, comfort, safety, autonomy, and social interaction were all positive, with a total mean of 1.14 (SD: 0.64, seven-point scale from −3 to +3). The mean perceived usability of the bundle was 1.63 (SD: 0.89, seven-point scale from −3 to +3). The ability of the bundle to recognise emergencies quickly was rated especially positively (mean: 1.45, SD: 0.81, five-point scale from −2 to +2). Only the perceived effort of us-ing the bundle as an informal carer was rated slightly negatively (mean: −0.62, SD: 0.92, five-point scale from −2 to +2). 10 informal carers reported some fu-ture willingness to pay a monthly fee for the whole bundle including services, with a wide range of ac-ceptable monthly fees being stated (mean: 57.19e, SD: 52.57e).
Conclusion: The lack of differences between phase 1 and 2 in terms of general technology attitude and eval-uation of the bundle is not surprising as the bundle changed little over time from the end-users’ point of view (the improvements were of a technical nature and had no noteworthy effects). Even if there were no sta-tistically significant increases of the perceived quality and effects of the technology bundle over time, we can still state that the overall perception by the informal carers was almost always positive in both phases. The exploratory nature of the research design did not allow sophisticated statistical analysis methods. We there-fore consider the results as preparatory for bigger scale projects (e.g. i-evAALution, also funded by the AAL programme).