technology, technology of emergency response/warning about potential hazards, gas
leakage detector and transportation assistance. There was no doubt that technology of
emergency response/warning about potential hazards was the most focused one (represented 22% in this category), followed by falling prevention (represented 19% in this
category). Alarm system [30] was the most significant technology, together with
gas/smoke sensor [29] and emergency call devices [31].
Communication, family relationship and social involvement played an important
role in older people’s mental health. Nine types of needs were identified, including
finance managing assistance, appointment/issue reminding technology, shopping
assistance/delivery, video call system, assistance of social contacts with family
member/other people, relative recognizing technology, personal communication technology, companionship technology/robots, smart phone and computer. Among them,
assistance of social contacts with family member and companionship
technology/robots were pointed out by 45% of the researchers concentrating on this
field. Video call system and social robots [32, 33] were the most recommended
technologies.
Researchers looked into older people’s target [25] and expectations [30, 34, 35]
towards assistive technology, or just set the feature of a specific type assistive technologies [36] but did not include comprehensive view of assistive technologies. Some
of the previous research focused on motivations [37, 38], barriers [39] and effectiveness
[26] of smart home and assistive technologies – they focused more on adoption [8, 40,
41] than needs. Looking at the range of assistive technologies mentioned in the
research, some research was broad enough but not specified, which just mentioned the
whole range of assistive technology [42–45] or technology used in a very broad field
[24, 46–50]. This is not useful enough to guide technology developers to map their
detailed products to older people. On the other hand, some research provided very
narrow view of assistive technologies [3, 28, 32, 33, 51–53], with only one or two
specific technologies introduced.
There appears to be a need for an effective way to analyze and predict older
people’s needs that can be matched with the assistive technologies that are available.
5 Conclusion
There is existing literature into older people’s needs in the field of health, leisure,
living, safety, communication, family relationship and social involvement. Among
them, living category was of most interest. To be more specific, assistive technology
for walking and mobility were of the most interest by researchers. The information was
gained mostly by interview, telephone talk, home visit or observation in a project.
Though these methods were direct, liable, accurate, they were less efficient by directly
interacting with older people, who might not be able to express their needs well
because of inadequate awareness of technology or chronic disease that hinders the
ability of communication. Another way to link older people’s needs with technologies
was to apply a technology push to older people and check the effectiveness and
adoption, which may then cause misfit between older adults’ needs and available
technology. A better way may be needed to explore the opportunities for smart homes
410
J. Soar et al.
leakage detector and transportation assistance. There was no doubt that technology of
emergency response/warning about potential hazards was the most focused one (represented 22% in this category), followed by falling prevention (represented 19% in this
category). Alarm system [30] was the most significant technology, together with
gas/smoke sensor [29] and emergency call devices [31].
Communication, family relationship and social involvement played an important
role in older people’s mental health. Nine types of needs were identified, including
finance managing assistance, appointment/issue reminding technology, shopping
assistance/delivery, video call system, assistance of social contacts with family
member/other people, relative recognizing technology, personal communication technology, companionship technology/robots, smart phone and computer. Among them,
assistance of social contacts with family member and companionship
technology/robots were pointed out by 45% of the researchers concentrating on this
field. Video call system and social robots [32, 33] were the most recommended
technologies.
Researchers looked into older people’s target [25] and expectations [30, 34, 35]
towards assistive technology, or just set the feature of a specific type assistive technologies [36] but did not include comprehensive view of assistive technologies. Some
of the previous research focused on motivations [37, 38], barriers [39] and effectiveness
[26] of smart home and assistive technologies – they focused more on adoption [8, 40,
41] than needs. Looking at the range of assistive technologies mentioned in the
research, some research was broad enough but not specified, which just mentioned the
whole range of assistive technology [42–45] or technology used in a very broad field
[24, 46–50]. This is not useful enough to guide technology developers to map their
detailed products to older people. On the other hand, some research provided very
narrow view of assistive technologies [3, 28, 32, 33, 51–53], with only one or two
specific technologies introduced.
There appears to be a need for an effective way to analyze and predict older
people’s needs that can be matched with the assistive technologies that are available.
5 Conclusion
There is existing literature into older people’s needs in the field of health, leisure,
living, safety, communication, family relationship and social involvement. Among
them, living category was of most interest. To be more specific, assistive technology
for walking and mobility were of the most interest by researchers. The information was
gained mostly by interview, telephone talk, home visit or observation in a project.
Though these methods were direct, liable, accurate, they were less efficient by directly
interacting with older people, who might not be able to express their needs well
because of inadequate awareness of technology or chronic disease that hinders the
ability of communication. Another way to link older people’s needs with technologies
was to apply a technology push to older people and check the effectiveness and
adoption, which may then cause misfit between older adults’ needs and available
technology. A better way may be needed to explore the opportunities for smart homes
410
J. Soar et al.