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BMC Geriatrics
Published in: BMC Geriatrics 1/2021

Open Access 01-12-2021 | Care | Research article

Placing assistive technology and telecare in everyday practices of people with dementia and their caregivers: findings from an embedded ethnography of a national dementia trial

Authors: Matthew Lariviere, Fiona Poland, John Woolham, Stanton Newman, Chris Fox

Published in: BMC Geriatrics | Issue 1/2021

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Abstract

Background

Policy makers and care providers see assistive technology and telecare as potential products to support people with dementia to live independently in their homes and communities. Previous research rarely examined how people with dementia and their caregivers actually use such technology. The study examined how and why people living with dementia and their caregivers used assistive technology and telecare in their own homes.

Methods

This study used an ethnographic design embedded within the NIHR-funded Assistive Technology and Telecare to maintain Independent Living At home for people with dementia (ATTILA) randomised controlled trial. We collected 208 h of observational data on situated practices of ten people with dementia and their ten caregivers. We used this data to construct extended cases to explain how technologies supported people with dementia in home and community settings.

Results

We identified three themes: placing technology in care, which illustrates how people with dementia and caregivers ‘fit’ technology into their homes and routines; replacing care with technology, which shows how caregivers replaced normal care practices with ones mediated through technologies; and technology displacing care and everyday life, which highlights how technologies disrupted the everyday lives of people with dementia.

Discussion

This study exemplifies unintended and unanticipated consequences for assistive technology and telecare uptake in ‘real world’ community-based dementia care. It underlines the need to identify and map the context of technological provision over time within the changing lives of people with dementia and their caregivers.
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Metadata
Title
Placing assistive technology and telecare in everyday practices of people with dementia and their caregivers: findings from an embedded ethnography of a national dementia trial
Authors
Matthew Lariviere
Fiona Poland
John Woolham
Stanton Newman
Chris Fox
Publication date
01-12-2021
Publisher
BioMed Central
Published in
BMC Geriatrics / Issue 1/2021
Electronic ISSN: 1471-2318
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1186/s12877-020-01896-y

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Keynote webinar | Spotlight on medication adherence

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Live: Thursday 27th June 2024, 18:00-19:30 (CEST)

WHO estimates that half of all patients worldwide are non-adherent to their prescribed medication. The consequences of poor adherence can be catastrophic, on both the individual and population level.

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