Role of Information and Communication Technology in the lives of Elderly people and their Carers

Sujith Kumar Anand- skanand@kth.se

Rajatha Gangadharaprasad- rajatha@kth.se

Abstract

With the increase in world population, elderly people population are also increasing. At the same time, the elderly people are depending on carers to support their daily life. ICT is trying to provide support for elderly people to improve their daily lives, so that elderly people can remain independent and reduce the need for support from carers. The goal of our project is to collect opinions from elderly people about their willingness in using ICT devices.

1. Introduction Population of elderly people (i.e., people over the age of 64) is growing and there is an increasing trend in this population all over the world[1][2]. Elderly people rely on their carers to provide help[3]. Thus, there has been increased emphasis for carers, since elderly people wish to remain independent in their own homes as long as possible[3]. However, elderly people like to be cared at their homes rather than care homes as a means of reducing costs[4]. All these factors points out to the crucial question that how can be elderly people and their carers supported?

In the hunt for finding innovative and new ways of cracking this problem, increased interest is given to Information and Communication Technology (ICT) and its possible role to support elderly people and their carers. ICT devices and research on ICT for elderly care are increasing day by day and used by diverse groups of people[5][6][7]. Additionally, the potential of ICT to help to create a more optimal work environment by enabling better use of carer’s time is also researched[8][9]. In the years, the search for finding innovative solutions has been increased and this has led to the uptake of new ICT devices or products[3]. The ICT devices which will help elderly people are computer systems, handheld devices and in more broader perspective are stand-alone technologies (i.e., tracking devices and so on), tele-care and tele-health solutions (safety related devices) and smart homes[10]. The use of ICT by elderly people is very less. Elderly people tend to face many problems while using ICT because ICT is very new to elderly people and also age plays a major role in understanding and using ICT[11].

The use of ICT by elderly people lags behind other generations of population[12]. For example, as of 2011, in European Union only 20% of the people over the age of 64 years

used ICT (i.e., used Internet daily), when compared to 81% of people between 16 to 24 years and 63% of people above 25 to 63 years[13].

Thus, there has been a tough argument at the world level for active involvement of elderly people and their carers in to the new culture of ICT[14].

1.1 Background

The world population is continuously increasing and will continue in the future. As of today, the world population is estimated to be 7.119 billion[15]. Simultaneously, people around the world are also very quickly ageing. Currently, one in every nine people in the world is older than 60 years of age and is expected to increase to one in five people by 2050 [16]. Below Figure-1 depicts the proportion of world population aged 60 years of age or older in the year 2012 and by the year 2050 [17].

Figure 1: Proportion of world population for people over the age of 60 years in the year 2012 and 2050.

In 2030, two carers need to take care of one elderly person above the age of 60 years [18]. In the United States alone, 43.5 million family carers provide care to people who are above the age of 60 years [19]. Figure-2 shows the percentage of people who are reported as carers and the total number of hours spent in a week to provide care.

Figure-2: Percentage of people who are reported as carers and the total number of hours spent in a week to provide care

In future, there will be a shortage of carers as the carers are also growing older and they themselves require carers for supporting them [20]. With the increase in population of elderly people, and their carers, the use of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) plays a vital role in both their lives.

1.2 Problem

The population of elderly people is increasing and so the support provided to them by their carers is also increasing. However, the carers are also growing older. Elderly people are facing constrained life as it will not be possible for them to neither work nor earn anymore, finances become challenging. Industrialisation has made younger generation to migrate to urban areas and cities in search of better jobs and living. Elderly people stay apart and depend on their carers for help. It is difficult for the carers to nurture elderly people round the clock as they too need time for their personal life [21]. The combination of ICT and elderly people seems to be inappropriate choice because the current technologies are new to the elderly people [11]. Elderly people are not completely adapted to the use of ICT devices. The reasons may be due to lack of knowledge, difficulty in operating ICT devices and hesitant to use assistive devices [22].

1.3 Purpose

The purpose of this research is focused mainly on collecting opinion from elderly people about their willingness in using ICT devices. Also, focus on opinions from carers and younger generation of people to understand the future impact of ICT in elderly care.

1.4 Goal

This investigation illustrates current trend in usage of ICT by elderly people, their carers, and younger generation of people. Address the issues faced by elderly people in using ICT, what do carers think about ICT, and report the role of ICT in elderly care in future.

2. Method

This section explains the methods selected for this research study alongside the reasons for making those choices.

Qualitative approach is followed for this research study because the aim of the research is to gather information from the target users. The qualitative method investigates the questions related to why and how of decision making, not just where, what, when. Moreover, the results are focused samples rather than large samples[23] [24].

Philosophical Assumption

Our research project is based on Interpretivism assumptions[23][25]. Since the authenticity is accessed by understanding the people’s opinions. In order to get the people’s experiences, inductive manner is followed by understanding the richness, depth and complexity of the phenomenon.

Research Method

This report is a descriptive research because the characteristics of the elderly people are described by finding why elderly people are not willing to use ICT devices[26].

Data Collection

In this project, we have used two different kinds of survey (i.e., Personal and Online) to collect information from targeted users. The survey was collected in various places of Stockholm region to get different background of people’s opinion. The selection of target users were identified by observation (i.e., whether the identified person fits the target user group)[26].

Data Analysis

Data analysis is done by summary extraction of the collected information from all the three categories of people i.e., elderly people, carers, and younger generation of people. The study is focused on elderly people and to understand the “why” factor surrounding them, and also to collect the opinions from the carers and younger generation of people. The collected information from elderly people, their carers, and younger generation people are summarised to point out their opinions.

Data Assurance

The ethics and confidentiality of the people are followed, since the data collected through survey was anonymous without collecting any personal information apart from their age. The result can be replicable since the current elderly people who are not willing to use ICT will also not be willing to use ICT in further days until an awareness on the benefits of ICT is not created among them.

2.1 Data Collection

Data is collected in two different methods, by a personal survey for elderly people and their carers, and an online survey for the younger generation of people. The data was collected at public places such as shopping malls and city centres. Data collection through online surveys is carried out via social media websites such as facebook. The personal survey for elderly people and their carers had three closed questions followed by two open questions.

A total of 62 responses were collected i.e., 12 from elderly people, 22 from carers, and 28 from younger people. All the 62 responses are valid since all the participants have solid reasoning for their answers which will be summarised and explained in “Results” section.

The participants for the personal survey were not selected randomly. Instead, the people were first observed, and then approached for permission to take part in survey.

2.2 Data Analysis

To originate meaningful information from the collected raw data, summary extraction through grounded theory approach is used to summarize the information collected through survey. Pie charts are used for graphical representation of the summarized information on the collected data. There was three surveys conducted for three target groups i.e., elderly people, their carers, and younger generation of people. The elderly people and their carers were provided with personal survey and an online survey for the younger generation of people. The data collected is a mixture of open and closed questions. Therefore, a summary is extracted on the basis of all the information collected from three categories of people i.e., elderly people, carers, and younger generation of people to provide the outline of the result based on collected data.

3 Results The data collected by conducting a personal survey of elderly people shows as in Figure-3 that ten out of twelve elderly people are not using and willing to use ICT devices.

The reason is because elderly people are not much aware of the recent technologies and they are hesitant to try ICT devices which are unknown to them and they think they might not be able to use it properly and may face problems. Remaining two out of twelve elderly people surveyed are atleast using mobile phones and sometimes use internet.

Figure-3: Summarized opinion of elderly people on using ICT devices.

The data collected by conducting a personal survey of the carers shows as in Figure-4 that almost twenty out of twenty two carers who are in the middle aged group are already using few kinds of ICT devices and they are aware of the recent technologies. The carers have the opinion that usage of ICT by elderly people would be beneficial for both the carers and elderly people. Few among them are satisfied with the present technology and would not like to try any new technologies in future.

Figure-4: Summarized opinion of carers on using ICT devices.

The data collected by conducting an online survey of the younger generation of people shows as in Figure-5 that almost everybody are using different kinds of ICT devices and they are very experimental on the recent technologies. They discuss about the drawbacks in current ICT devices that they are using and they are looking forward for the improvements in future technologies.

Figure-5: Summarized opinion of younger generation people on using ICT devices.

3.1 Discussion

The result from this investigation points out that elderly people are not willing to use ICT devices. Additionally, this investigation also reveals that carers recommend, and want elderly people to use ICT devices.

Evaluation of methods

The data collection method for this investigation has a risk. The personal survey data was collected at an open environment where the participants were approached forcefully and asked for permission to participate in the survey. So the data obtained might not contain true opinions. Although the time was given to participants by explaining what is ICT and what are the different types of ICT devices are present. Then the participants were asked to answer to the survey questions. The same relates to online survey, whether the participant provided their true opinions or not is unknown.

Constraints

The research has produced so many constraints and explained below:

1) Change of Idea- The initial idea of the project was to find out how many elderly people are using supporting ICT devices i.e., location tracking and Alerting devices. The whole idea of the research was changed because getting permission to interview or to take a survey was rejected from care homes and collection of information related to elderly people using ICT devices was difficult.

2) Personal Survey: At the time of survey many elderly people were approached to take part in the survey, but they were not willing to neither respond nor take part in the survey. So, the number of participants was less.

Limitations

The data collected from this investigation is not sufficient to generate a theory or an ideal collection for further research. This type of investigation can provide better results if “Case Study” approach is followed, but due to time constraints it was not possible to follow the best approaches.

4 Conclusions The data collected emphasizes on the usage of ICT by three categories of people: elderly people, carers, and the younger generation of people.

The elderly people are not willing to use ICT devices because they are not much aware of the recent technologies, they think it as an alien system to use, and they are still very much dependent on their carers.

On the other part, the carers who are middle aged people are aware of the recent technologies, they are using different ICT devices in their daily activities, and the carers think it is helpful for them if elderly people start using ICT devices.

The younger generation of people are very fascinated about the recent technologies and have accepted ICT as an integral and essential part of their daily lives.

In future, ICT will play a vital role in elderly care as well, because most of the carers and the younger generation of people are aware of ICT and are using ICT in their daily activities.

4.1 Future work

The future work is to create awareness among elderly people about the benefits of using ICT in their daily activities, educate elderly people by providing training sessions and tutorials on how to use ICT devices and products. After that, do a case study to understand and come out with a result on whether elderly people are willing to use ICT in future.

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