As people age, physiological changes affect their thermal perception, sensitivity and regulation. The ability to respond effectively to temperature fluctuations is compromised with physiological ageing, upsetting the homeostatic balance of health in some. As a result, older people can become vulnerable at extremes of thermal conditions in their environment. With population ageing worldwide, it is an imperative that there is a better understanding of older people’s thermal needs and preferences so that their comfort and wellbeing in their living environment can be optimised and healthy ageing achieved. However, the complex changes affecting the physiological layers of the individual during the ageing process, although largely inevitable, cannot be considered linear. They can happen in different stages, speeds and intensities throughout the ageing process, resulting in an older population with a great level of heterogeneity and risk. Therefore, predicting older people’s thermal requirements in an accurate way requires an in-depth investigation of their individual intrinsic differences. This paper discusses an exploratory study that collected data from 71 participants, aged 65 or above, from 57 households in South Australia, over a period of 9 months in 2019. The paper includes a preliminary evaluation of the effects of individual intrinsic characteristics such as sex, body composition, frailty and other factors, on thermal comfort. It is expected that understanding older people’s thermal comfort from the lens of these diversity-causing parameters could lead to the development of individualised thermal comfort models that fully capture the heterogeneity observed and respond directly to older people’s needs in an effective way. (article starts at page 13)
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In November 2021, the Lecturer Position at Institutes (L.INT) professorship was established by Saxion and Medical Spectrum Twente and as partners physiotherapy practice Pro-F and the Thoracic Centre Twente, with Sandra van Hogen-Koster as a professor. With this, the first Dutch professorship that focuses on the ideas of Positive Health has been launched.
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The COVID-19 pandemic has changed many aspects of people’s lives, and seems to have affected people’s wellbeing and relation to technology now, and in the future. Not only has it changed people’s lives and the way citizens live, work, exercise, craft and stay connected, the pandemic has also altered the way Human Computer Interaction (HCI) professionals can engage in face-to-face interactions and consequently participatory, human-centered design and research. Limitations in being close to others and having physical, visible and shared interactions pose a challenge as these aspects are typically considered critical for the accomplishment of a transparent, attractive and critical understanding of technology and respective civic and digital engagement for wellbeing. Consequently, the risk now observed is that citizens in the new ‘normal’ digital society, particularly vulnerable groups, are beingeven less connected, supported or heard. Drawing from a study with an expert panel of 20 selected HCI related professionals in The Netherlands that participated on-line (through focus groups, questionnaires and/or interviews) discussing co-creation for wellbeing in times of COVID-19 (N=20), and civic values for conditional data sharing (N=11), this paper presents issues encountered and potential new approaches to overcome participatory challenges in the ‘new’ digital society. This study further draws on project reporting and a ‘one week in the life of’ study in times of COVID-19 with a physical toolkit for remote data collection that was used with older adults (65+, N=13) and evaluated with professionals (N=6). Drawing on such projects and professional experiences, the paper discusses some opportunities of participatory approaches for the new ‘distant’ normal.
The transition towards an economy of wellbeing is complex, systemic, dynamic and uncertain. Individuals and organizations struggle to connect with and embrace their changing context. They need to create a mindset for the emergence of a culture of economic well-being. This requires a paradigm shift in the way reality is constructed. This emergence begins with the mindset of each individual, starting bottom-up. A mindset of economic well-being is built using agency, freedom, and responsibility to understand personal values, the multi-identity self, the mental models, and the individual context. A culture is created by waving individual mindsets together and allowing shared values, and new stories for their joint context to emerge. It is from this place of connection with the self and the other, that individuals' intrinsic motivation to act is found to engage in the transitions towards an economy of well-being. This project explores this theoretical framework further. Businesses play a key role in the transition toward an economy of well-being; they are instrumental in generating multiple types of value and redefining growth. They are key in the creation of the resilient world needed to respond to the complex and uncertain of our era. Varta-Valorisatielab, De-Kleine-Aarde, and Het Groene Brein are frontrunner organizations that understand their impact and influence. They are making bold strategic choices to lead their organizations towards an economy of well-being. Unfortunately, they often experience resistance from stakeholders. To address this resistance, the consortium in the proposal seeks to answer the research question: How can individuals who connect with their multi-identity-self, (via personal values, mental models, and personal context) develop a mindset of well-being that enables them to better connect with their stakeholders (the other) and together address the transitional needs of their collective context for the emergence of a culture of the economy of wellbeing?
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.
A feeling of worry, anxiety, loneliness and anticipation are commonplace in both medical and non-medical arenas such as elderly care. An innovative solution such as the ‘simple and effective’ comfyhand would offer better patient care and improved care efficiency with a high chance of long-term, economic efficiency. ComfyHand is a start-up in the healthcare sector that aims to develop sustainable products to improve patient wellbeing in healthcare settings. It does this by emulating the experience of holding a hand which gives the person comfort and support in moments where real human contact is not possible. Right now the comfyhand is in the development phase, working on several prototypes for test trials in elderly care and hospitals. In this project we want to explore the use of 3D printing for producing a comfyhand. Desired properties for the prototype include optimal heat transfer, softness, regulation of sweat, durability and sustainability. The goal of this study is to develop a prototype to test in a trial with patients within Envida, a care centre. The trial itself is out of scope of this project. This proposal focuses on researching the material of choice and the processability. Building on knowledge gained in a previous Kiem GoChem project and a Use Case (Shape3Dup) of a currently running Raak MKB project (Enlighten) on 3D printing of breast prostheses, several materials, designs and printing parameters will be tested.
