Ethics and acceptance of smart homes for older adults
Abstract
Societal challenges associated with caring for the physical and mental health of older adults worldwide have grown at an unprecedented pace, increasing demand for health-care services and technologies Despite the development of several assistive systems tailored to older adults, the rate of adoption of health technologies is low. This review discusses the ethical and acceptability challenges resulting in low adoption of health technologies specifically focused on smart homes for older adults. The findings have been structured in two categories: Ethical Considerations (Privacy, Social Support, and Autonomy) and Technology Aspects (User Context, Usability, and Training). The findings conclude that older adults community is more likely to adopt assistive systems when four key criteria are met. The technology should: be personalized toward their needs, protect their dignity and independence, provide user control, and not be isolating. Finally, we recommend researchers and developers working on assistive systems to: (1) provide interfaces via smart devices to control and configure the monitoring system with feedback for the user, (2) include various sensors/devices to architect a smart home solution in a way that is easy to integrate in daily life, and (3) define policies about data ownership.
Citation
Pirzada , P , Wilde , A , Doherty , G H & Harris-Birtill , D 2022 , ' Ethics and acceptance of smart homes for older adults ' , Informatics for Health and Social Care , vol. 47 , no. 1 , pp. 10-37 . https://doi.org/10.1080/17538157.2021.1923500
Publication
Informatics for Health and Social Care
Status
Peer reviewed
ISSN
1753-8157Type
Journal item
Description
Funding: The research is funded by School of Computer Science, University of St Andrews and St Leonard College for Pireh Pirzada's PhD thesis.Collections
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