Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Can Quantified Self Be a Facilitating Technology to Help Older Adults Stay Longer in Their Home?

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
Book cover Mobile e-Health

Part of the book series: Human–Computer Interaction Series ((HCIS))

Abstract

Readers of this chapter are taken through a journey by the author, who narrates a real-life story of a lady called Maria who is 75-year old and lives with her husband Albert, 81-years. The narration describes the lives of Maria and Albert, detailing their enjoyment of physical activity, and their children. Yet, one-day Maria is diagnosed with Alzheimer’s and through the narration the author describes the experience that Maria and her family experience. Fast forwarding, to the year 2030, the author continues her narration describing how technology may fit into Maria’s life and that of her family; including the use of wearable devices and sensors integrated into the home where Maria lives, and enabling her family to track in real-time Maria’s sleep patterns and overall health. Additionally, this chapter discusses the fields of ageing in place, the quantified self (QS), and based on existing work in this field, the author explores a taxonomy for the QS, referencing and drawing on the work of Deborah Lupton. Further exploration and discussion in the areas of appropriation, affordance, rights, and risks of QS are provided with the author exploring how digital technologies fit within the healthcare system.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 84.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 109.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD 159.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

References

  • Allen A (2017) Will grandma want a robot seal? Retrieved from Politico: http://www.politico.com/agenda/story/2017/01/technology-healthcare-advances-for-the-elderly-000268

  • Altus DM (2000) Evaluating an electronic monitoring system for people who wander. J Alzheimer’s Dis Other Dementia’s 15:121–125

    Google Scholar 

  • Andrejevic M (2014) The big data divide. Int J Commun 8:1673–1689

    Google Scholar 

  • Arning KZ (2015) Get that camera out of my house!” Conjoint measurement of preferences for video-based healthcare monitoring systems in private and public places. ICOST 2015, pp 152–164

    Google Scholar 

  • Ballinger CP (2002) The construction of the risk of falling among and by older people. Ageing Soc 22:305–324

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bickmore TW (2003) Relational agents: effecting change through human-computer relationships. PhD, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, program in media arts and sciences, School of Architecture and Planning, Boston

    Google Scholar 

  • Birnholtz JM-R (2010) Independence and interaction: understanding seniors’ privacy and awareness needs for aging in place. CHI2010, Atlanta, GA, USA. ACM, Atlanta

    Google Scholar 

  • Brauner PZ (2014). Exergames for Elderly in Ambient Assisted Living Environments. International Conference on Pervasive Games – PERGAMES. Springer, Berlin/Heidelberg

    Google Scholar 

  • Brittain K, Corner L, Robinson L, Bond J (2010) Ageing in place and technologies of place: the lived experience of people with dementia in changing social, physical and technological environments. Sociology of Health & Illness 32:272–287. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9566.2009.01203.

  • Campbell AJ, Robertson CM (2003) Otago exercise program to prevent falls in older adults. Otago Medical School, Otago

    Google Scholar 

  • Choe EE (2014) Understanding quantified-Selfers’ practices in collecting and exploring personal data. CHI 2014. ACM, Toronto

    Google Scholar 

  • Coventry PA (2014) Capacity, responsibility, and motivation: a critical qualitative evaluation of patient and practitioner views about barriers to self-management in people with multimorbidity. BMC Health Services Research

    Google Scholar 

  • Dadlani PS (2010) Aurama: caregiver awareness for living independently with an augmented picture frame display. AI & Soc 25(2):235–245

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Davey JN (2004) Accommodation options for older people in Aotearoa/New Zealand. Institute for Research on Ageing/Business & Economic Research Ltd.

    Google Scholar 

  • Demiris GH (2008) Senior residents’ perceived need of and preferences for “smart home” sensor technologies. Int J Technol Assess Health Care 24(1):120–124

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Demiris G, Oliver D (2008) Use of videophones for distant caregiving: an enriching experience for families and residents in long-term care. J Gerontol Nurs 34(7):50–55

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ducatel KB-C (2001) Scenarios For Ambient Intelligence In 2010. European Commission, user friendly information society. European Commission

    Google Scholar 

  • Endeavour Partners (2014). Inside wearables. How the science of human behavior change offers the secret to long-term engagement. © 2014 Endeavour Partners LLC

    Google Scholar 

  • Epstein DP (2015) A lived informatics model of personal informatics. UbiComp’15, September 07–11, 2015, Osaka, Japan. ACM, Osaka

    Google Scholar 

  • Epstein (2016) Beyond abandonment to next steps: understanding and designing for life after personal informatics tool use. CHI’16, May 07–12, 2016, San Jose, CA, USA. ACM, San Jose

    Google Scholar 

  • European Commission (EGECFIN), a. t. (2012). The 2012 ageing report, economic and budgetary projections for the 27 EU Member States (2010–2060). European Commission, DG ECFIN & AWG. European Commission, Brussels

    Google Scholar 

  • Eurostat (2014) Eurostat T, EU statistics on regions and cities. Eurostat regional yearbook. In Eurstat regional yearbook (doi:10.2785/54659 ed.). Luxembourg: Publications O ce of the European Union

    Google Scholar 

  • Exleya CA (2007) A critical examination of home care: end of life care as an illustrative case. Soc Sci Med 65:2317–2327

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Fogg B (2009) A behavior model for persuasive design. Persuasive’09. Clairmont: ACM ISBN 978-1-60558-376-1/09/04

    Google Scholar 

  • Foucault M (1988) http://foucault.info/documents/foucault.technologiesofself.en.html. Retrieved from Foucault.Info: http://foucault.info/documents/foucault.technologiesofself.en.html

  • Fox SD (2013) Tracking for health. Pew Internet Research, Pew Internet Research

    Google Scholar 

  • Fried LT (2001) Frailty in older adults: evidence for a phenotype. J Gerontol Ser A Biol Med Sci 56(3):M146–M156

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Fritz TH (2014) Persuasive technology in the real world: a study of long-term use of activity sensing devices for fitness. CHI 2014, One of a CHInd. Toronto

    Google Scholar 

  • Geraedts HA (2014) Adherence to and effectiveness of an individually tailored home-based exercise program for frail older adults, driven by mobility monitoring: design of a prospective cohort study. BMC Public Health 14:570

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Geraerdts HA (2017) A home-based exercise program driven by tablet application and mobility monitoring for frail older adults: feasibility and practical implications. Prev Chronic Dis 14(160227):E12

    Google Scholar 

  • Gobbens EA (2010) The Tilburg frailty indicator: psychometric properties. American Medical Directors Association

    Google Scholar 

  • Gschwind YJ et al (2014) ICT-based system to predict and prevent falls (iStoppFalls): study protocol for an international multicenter randomized controlled trial. BMC Geriatr 14:91

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gschwind YJ et al (2015) ICT-based system to predict and prevent falls (iStoppFalls): results from an international multicenter randomized controlled trial. Eur Rev Aging Phys Act 12:10

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Harcourt B (2015) Exposed. Havard University Press, Camebridge, UK

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Himmel SZ (2016) Smart home medical technologies: users’ requirements for conditional acceptance. i-com 15(1):39–50

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Jovanov EM (2011) Body area networks for ubiquitous healthcare applications: opportunities and challenges. J Med Syst 35(5):1245–1254

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Karapanos E (2015) Sustaining user engagement with behavior – change tools. INTERACTIONS.ACM.ORG

  • Klack, L. (2011). Future care floor: a sensitive floor for movement monitoring and fall detection in home environments. Wireless mobile communication and healthcare. pp 211–218

    Google Scholar 

  • Leonardi CE (2009) Knocking on elders’ door: investigating the functional and emotional geography of their domestic space. CHI 2009, April 4–9, 2009, Boston, MA, USA. Boston: ACM 978160558-246-7/09/04

    Google Scholar 

  • Lupton D (2014) Self-tracking modes: reflexive self-monitoring and data practices. Imminent citizenships: personhood and identity politics in the informatic age

    Google Scholar 

  • Lupton D (2016a) Digitised health, medicine and risk, health, risk & society. Health Risk Soc 17(7–8):473–476

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lupton D (2016b) The quantified self. Polity Press, USA

    Google Scholar 

  • Lyon D (2009) Surveillance, power and everyday life. In: David L (ed) The Oxford handbook of information and communication technologies. Oxford University Press, Oxford

    Google Scholar 

  • Machiko RT (2010) Smart home with healthcare technologies for community-dwelling older adults, smart home systems. InTech

    Google Scholar 

  • Mann S (1997) Smart clothing: the “Wearable Computer” and WearCam. Personal Technol 1(1). Retrieved from http://n1nlf-1.eecg.toronto.edu/personaltechnologies/

  • Markopoulos PD (2009) A design framework for awareness systems, awareness systems. Springer London, London

    Google Scholar 

  • Markopoulos P (2016) Reflections and advances in ambient intelligence. J Ambient Intell Smart Environ 8(5):491–499

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Marston HR (2015) The design of a purpose-built exergame for fall prediction and prevention for older people. Eur Rev Aging Phys Act 12:13

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Metaxas GM (2007) Daily activities diarist: supporting aging in place with semantically enriched narratives. INTERACT 2007. 4663, pp 390–403. Springer

    Google Scholar 

  • Mynatt EE (2000) Increasing the opportunities for aging in place. CUU’00 Proceedings on the 2000 conference on Universal Usability. ACM, New York, pp 65–71

    Google Scholar 

  • Norman (1993) Things that make us smarter. Diversion Books, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Norman D (2010) Living with complexity. Cambridge Massachusetts, London, England: MIT Press

    Google Scholar 

  • Olson P (2014) Wearable tech is plugging into health insurance. (Forbes) Retrieved from Forbes: http://www.forbes.com/sites/parmyolson/2014/06/19/wearable-tech-health-insurance/#1498788b5ba1

  • Patel S (2012) A review of wearable sensors and systems with application in rehabilitation. J Neuroeng Rehabil 9:21

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Percival JJ (2006) Big brother or brave new world? Telecare and its implications for older people’s independence and social inclusion. Crit Soc Policy 26:888–909

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pino MB-S (2015) “Are we ready for robots that care for us?” Attitudes and opinions of older adults toward socially assistive robots. Front Aging Neurosci 7:141

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Punie YD (2005) Dark scenarios in ambient intelligence: highlighting risks and vulnerabilities. SWAMI consortium to the European Commission under contract 006507, Information Society Technologies

    Google Scholar 

  • Quantified Self London Meetup (2014) London QS meetup survey. Retrieved from Quantified Self: http://quantifiedself.com/2014/03/london-qs-meetup-survey/

  • Rolfson DM (2006) Validity and reliability of the Edmonton frail scale. Age Ageing 35:526–529

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ruckenstein M (2015) Beyond the quantified self: thematic exploration of a dataistic paradigm. New Media Soc 1(18)

    Google Scholar 

  • Salomon RL (2010) iFall – case studies in unexpected falls. IEEE International Symposium on Industrial Electronics (ISIE) (pp 1645–1650). IEEE, Bari

    Google Scholar 

  • Shih PH (2015) Use and adoption challenges of wearable activity trackers. iConference 2015 proceedings

    Google Scholar 

  • Smarr CP (2012, Sep) Older adults’ preferences for and acceptance of robot assitance for everyday living tasks. Proc Hum Factors Ergon Soc Annu Meet 56(1):153–157

    Google Scholar 

  • Tacken MM (2005) Use and acceptance of new technology by older people. Findings of the international MOBILATE survey: enhancing mobility in later life. Geront Tech J 3:126–137

    Google Scholar 

  • The Economist (2012) Technology quarterly Q1 2012. Retrieved from The Economist: http://www.economist.com/node/21548493

  • UNFPA (2011) Aging in the twenty first century, a celebration and a challenge. UNFPA and HelpAge International London. New York: United Nations Population Fund

    Google Scholar 

  • Wolf G (2009) wired.com. Retrieved from https://www.wired.com/2009/06/lbnp-knowthyself/

Download references

Acknowledgments

I would like to dedicate this chapter to my mom who died in 2016 with severe Alzheimer’s disease. I used BodyMedia technology to monitor how she was sleeping and how much physical activity she was undertaking. Unfortunately, the latter was not working well, since she was not really making steps but more shuffled on her feet across the floor, and the system counted distinctive toe strikes to measure steps.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department Graphical Digital Media, Artevelde University College Ghent, Ghent, Belgium

    Christel De Maeyer

  2. Department of Industrial Design, Eindhoven University of Technology, Eindhoven, The Netherlands

    Christel De Maeyer

Authors
  1. Christel De Maeyer
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Christel De Maeyer .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Health & Wellbeing Priority Research Area, School of Health, Wellbeing & Social Care, Faculty of Wellbeing, Education & Language Studies, The Open University, Milton Keynes, United Kingdom

    Hannah R. Marston

  2. School of Nursing, University of Northern British Columbia, Prince George, British Columbia, Canada

    Shannon Freeman

  3. Centre for Innovative Ageing, School of Human and Health Sciences, Swansea University, Swansea, United Kingdom

    Charles Musselwhite

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2017 Springer International Publishing AG

About this chapter

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this chapter

De Maeyer, C. (2017). Can Quantified Self Be a Facilitating Technology to Help Older Adults Stay Longer in Their Home?. In: Marston, H., Freeman, S., Musselwhite, C. (eds) Mobile e-Health. Human–Computer Interaction Series. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-60672-9_4

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-60672-9_4

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-60671-2

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-60672-9

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation