The ageing population demands designing environments while considering their functional needs, desires and wishes. The ICF framework together with the gerontechnological principles can help to have focus on how to adjust or to (re)design the environment for this population. This paper focuses on building-related environmental factors including eHealth solutions. Knowledge and understanding of how the environment is perceived by older people help to set the building performance requirements and gives direction to improve our research to create healthy environments for future users.
The crossroads of living in cities on the one hand and ageing of the population on the other is studied in an interdisciplinary field of research called urban ageing (van Hoof and Kazak 2018, van Hoof et al. 2018). People live longer and in better health than ever before in Europe. Despite all the positive aspects of population ageing, it poses many challenges. The interaction of population ageing and urbanisation raises issues in various domains of urban living (Phillipson and Buffel 2016). According to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD 2015), the population share of those of 65 years old is expected to climb to 25.1% in 2050 in its member states. Cities in particular have large numbers of older inhabitants and are home to 43.2% of this older population. The need to develop supportive urban communities are major issues for public policy to understand the relationship between population ageing and urban change (Buffel and Phillipson 2016). Plouffe and Kalache (2010) see older citizens as a precious resource, but in order to tap the full potential these people represent for continued human development (Zaidi et al. 2013), the world’s cities must ensure their inclusion and full access to urban spaces, structures, and services. Therefore, cities are called upon to complement the efforts of national governments to address the consequences of the unprecedented demographic shift (OECD 2015). Additionally, at the city level there is a belief to understand the requirements and preferences of local communities (OECD 2015). An important question in relation to urban ageing is what exactly makes a city age-friendly (Alley et al. 2007, Lui et al. 2009, Plouffe and Kalache 2010, Steels 2015, Moulaert and Garon 2016, Age Platform Europe 2018)? Another relevant question is which factors allow some older people in cities to thrive, while others find it hard to cope with the struggles of daily life? This chapter explores and describes which elements and factors make cities age-friendly, for instance, on the neighbourhood level and in relation to technology for older people.
Assistive Technology (AT) is used at various points in the lifespan by those coping with either short-term or long-term impairments, which can involve living with chronic conditions and/or comorbidities. In the case of older adults, AT can support or compensate for the functional or cognitive declines that they are likely to face in later life. AT can be integrated as part of smart homes (see Figure 1 from van Dijken et al, 2006); and should be safe to use, effective, easy to access, affordable, and not seen as stigmatising. In addition, AT should support older adults to have a meaningful life while building self-esteem, and autonomy and promoting social participation and community engagement. For this roundtable discussion, we present and discuss a WHO-ISG collaborative project focused on Assistive Technology for Healthy Ageing. For this project, we consider applications and use AT not only from a medical standpoint but also situated within a social perspective in the context of Gerontechnology. Results and propositions according to the WHO-UNICEF global report on assistive technology were applied as a starting point for this project (WHO, 2022), prioritising the potential benefits to individuals, their communities, and society and with a focus on identifying potential barriers that may occur and how to mitigate them.
Due to societal developments, like the introduction of the ‘civil society’, policy stimulating longer living at home and the separation of housing and care, the housing situation of older citizens is a relevant and pressing issue for housing-, governance- and care organizations. The current situation of living with care already benefits from technological advancement. The wide application of technology especially in care homes brings the emergence of a new source of information that becomes invaluable in order to understand how the smart urban environment affects the health of older people. The goal of this proposal is to develop an approach for designing smart neighborhoods, in order to assist and engage older adults living there. This approach will be applied to a neighborhood in Aalst-Waalre which will be developed into a living lab. The research will involve: (1) Insight into social-spatial factors underlying a smart neighborhood; (2) Identifying governance and organizational context; (3) Identifying needs and preferences of the (future) inhabitant; (4) Matching needs & preferences to potential socio-techno-spatial solutions. A mixed methods approach fusing quantitative and qualitative methods towards understanding the impacts of smart environment will be investigated. After 12 months, employing several concepts of urban computing, such as pattern recognition and predictive modelling , using the focus groups from the different organizations as well as primary end-users, and exploring how physiological data can be embedded in data-driven strategies for the enhancement of active ageing in this neighborhood will result in design solutions and strategies for a more care-friendly neighborhood.
Dutch society faces major future challenges putting populations’ health and wellbeing at risk. An ageing population, increase of chronic diseases, multimorbidity and loneliness lead to more complex healthcare demands and needs and costs are increasing rapidly. Urban areas like Amsterdam have to meet specific challenges of a growing and super divers population often with a migration background. The bachelor programs and the relating research groups of social work and occupational therapy at the Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences innovate their curricula and practice-oriented research by multidisciplinary and cross-domain approaches. Their Centres of Expertise foster interprofessional research and educational innovation on the topics of healthy ageing, participation, daily occupations, positive health, proximity, community connectedness and urban innovation in a social context. By focusing on senior citizens’ lives and by organizing care in peoples own living environment. Together with their networks, this project aims to develop an innovative health promotion program and contribute to the government missions to promote a healthy and inclusive society. Collaboration with stakeholders in practice based on their urgent needs has priority in the context of increasing responsibilities of local governments and communities. Moreover, the government has recently defined social base as being the combination of citizen initiatives, volunteer organizations , caregivers support, professional organizations and support of vulnerable groups. Kraktie Foundations is a community based ethno-cultural organization in south east Amsterdam that seeks to research and expand their informal services to connect with and build with professional care organizations. Their aim coincides with this project proposal: promoting health and wellbeing of senior citizens by combining intervention, participatory research and educational perspectives from social work, occupational therapy and hidden voluntary social work. With a boundary crossing innovation of participatory health research, education and Kraktie’s work in the community we co-create, change and innovate towards sustainable interventions with impact.
Het is essentieel dat cliënten na een opname in een ziekenhuis of revalidatiecentrum blijven werken aan een actieve leefstijl die bijdraagt aan preventie, participatie en kwaliteit van leven. Hoewel gezondheid en gedrag primair de verantwoordelijkheid is van mensen zelf, is niet iedereen in staat na thuiskomst het geleerde zelfstandig voort te zetten. Na een opname wordt de transitie naar de thuissituatie door patiënten als moeilijk ervaren, soms met achteruitgang en heropnames als gevolg. Zorgprofessionals herkennen dit ook en willen de transitie naar huis beter vormgeven. De centrale vraag die Hogeschool Leiden (Lectoraat Eigen Regie bij Fysiotherapie en Beweegzorg), Haagse Hogeschool (Lectoraat Revalidatie en Technologie), Hanze Hogeschool (Lectoraat Healthy Ageing, Allied Health & Nursing Care), zorginstellingen Basalt (revalidatiecentrum) en Nij Smellinghe (ziekenhuis) en fysiotherapiepraktijken Medifit en Havenfysio (MKB-bedrijf) willen beantwoorden is: WAT is, gezien vanuit het perspectief van de ervaringsdeskundige cliënt, bepalend voor het fysiek actief blijven en integreren van duurzaam beweeggedrag in de eigen thuissituatie tot 1 jaar na transitie vanuit de intramurale zorg. Vanuit positieve gezondheid wordt breed onderzocht hoe mensen de fysieke, sociale en emotionele uitdagingen in relatie tot fysieke activiteit hebben benaderd en ervaren in hun thuissituatie na intramurale zorgopname. Cliënten wordt gevraagd naar hun meest waardevolle en frustrerende ervaringen en activiteiten met betrekking tot fysiek actief blijven in de eerste 3 tot 12 maanden na thuiskomst. Door het gebruik van storytelling worden de ervaringsdeskundigheid en dieperliggende motivaties van cliënten centraal gesteld binnen hun persoonlijke thuissituatie. We brengen vervolgens beïnvloedbare factoren van fysieke activiteit in de thuissituatie van mensen in kaart vanuit de perspectieven positieve gezondheid, eigen regie en gedrag. Op basis van de bevindingen wordt in co-creatie een innovatieve interventie agenda opgeleverd over hoe de betrokken partners fysieke activiteit in de thuissituatie kunnen ondersteunen en hoe de samenwerking in de zorgketen beter georganiseerd kan worden.
