Depression among caregivers of the elderly in need of care and their service utilization: A pilot study

Abstract Societies in the most developed countries have witnessed a significant ageing of the population in recent decades, which increases the demand for healthcare services and caregivers. The development of technologies to help the elderly, so that they can remain active and independent for a longer time, helps to mitigate the sustainability problem posed in care services. This article follows this new trend, proposing a multi-agent system composed of a smart camera network, centralised planning agent, a virtual coach, and robotic exercise buddy, designed to promote regular physical activity habits among the elderly. The proposed system not only persuades the users to perform exercise routines, but also guides and accompanies them during exercises in order to provide effective training and engagement to the user. The different agents are combined in the system to exploit their complementary features in the quest for an effective and engaging training system. Three variants of the system, involving either a partial set of those agents or the full proposed system, were evaluated and compared through a pilot study conducted with 12 elderly users. The results demonstrate that all variants are able to guide the user in an exercise routine, but the most complete system that includes a robotic exercise buddy was the best scored by the participants. Article Highlights Proposal of a multi-agent system to help elderly adopting regular physical activity habits. A virtual coach and a robotic exercise buddy provide both guidance and companionship during the exercise. A pilot study conducted with 12 elderly users demonstrated an effective and engaging training system.

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Preferences for everyday living inventory (PELI): study protocol for piloting a culture-sensitive and setting-specific translated instrument in German care settings (PELI-D)

BMJ Open ◽

10.1136/bmjopen-2019-030268 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 10 (1) ◽

pp. e030268

Author(s):

Tobias Ingo Stacke ◽

Johannes Michael Bergmann ◽

Armin Michael Ströbel ◽

René Müller-Widmer ◽

Daniel Purwins ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Pilot Study ◽

Older People ◽

Study Protocol ◽

Personal Information ◽

Care Process ◽

Internal Quality ◽

Care Practice ◽

Individual Preferences ◽

Need Of Care ◽

Everyday Living

IntroductionRegardless of the healthcare setting, person-centred care and its implementation in caring for older people are a central issue for those who are responsible as professional caregivers and for those in need of care within the care process. Both aspects encompass the possibility of recognising personal preferences. To provide person-centred care, professional caregivers need to know about the individual preferences of the persons being cared for. Therefore, the PELI (an acronym for ‘Preferences for Everyday Living Inventory’) instrument was developed at the Polisher Research Institute (USA) for the systematic recording of individual preferences of older people in need of care. There is currently no comparable instrument available in the German language.MethodsAs part of the proposed project PELI-D, all versions of the original PELI instrument (nursing home version) were (1) culture-sensitively translated into German and will be (2) examined in a pilot study for their reliability, feasibility and practicability. For the project PELI-D, we worked together with our practice partners in Germany (Diaconia and Caritas in North Rhine-Westphalia) and collaborated with our partners in the USA who developed the PELI instrument. This study protocol focuses on the pilot study, which will be conducted by the German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases (DZNE) (site Witten).Ethics and disseminationThis study was approved by the internal quality control committee of the DZNE (ID number: WI029 PELI-D) and by the ethics committee of the German Society of Nursing Science Duisburg branch office (ID number: 18-010). All personal information will be deidentified with a specific identification code and stored in a secured location apart from the rest of the study data. Only qualified and study-related staff will be allowed access to the data. The results of the study will be distributed nationally and internationally through peer-reviewed journals, conferences and journals for nursing care practice.

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