Caregiver needs from elder care assistive smart homes: Children of elder adults assessment

Assistive smart technology is positioned to assist familial caregivers with their elderly relatives, especially in home care situations. These technologies show great promise in providing high quality data to caregivers about their family members. There are many published successes on gathering and modeling data about older adults who need assistance, but little work on effectively delivering this data to caregivers. This research reports on interviews with informal familial caregivers being introduced to these kinds of technologies and what utility it may provide to them in caring for their loved ones. Interviews suggest that nutrition, sleep quality, medication compliance, safety, and general mobility are of central concern. User interface designers need to keep in mind familial caregivers may have very little technical support and will likely need more assistance in learning a new technology than nursing staff. Caregivers also describe a need for catching behavioral edge cases, as every individual has slightly different needs. When designing user-facing tools, extra attention to the needs of caregivers will ensure assistive smart homes will be effective tools in home care.