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Authors

Smith, S., Carragher, L.

Demographic changes and shifting populations mean growing numbers of older people are living alone in rural areas. General practitioner (GP) out-of-hours (GPOOH) services have an essential role in supporting older people to remain living in their own homes and communities for as long as possible, but little is known about use of GPOOH services by this cohort. This research examines how rurality impacts accessibility and utilisation of GPOOH services by people aged 65 years or more in rural Ireland.

Authors

Authors

Ekerete, I., Nugent, C., Giggins, O., McLaughlin, J.

This Chapter proposes an unobtrusive sensing solution for monitoring post-stroke rehabilitation exercises within a home environment. It begins with the definition of stroke, its types, statistics and effects. An overview of stroke rehabilitation techniques ranging from multiple exercising and isolated approaches to motor skill learning, mirror imagery, adjuvant therapies and technology-based interventions are all presented in this Chapter. In addition, the potential for the use of unobtrusive sensing solutions such as thermal, radar, optical and ultrasound sensing are considered with practical examples. The Seebeck, time of flight (ToF) and Doppler principles, which are associated with a number of the sensing solutions, are also explained. Furthermore, sensor data fusion (SDF) and its architectures such as centralized, distributed and hybrid architectures are explained. A few examples of SDF applications in automobile and terrestrial light detection are included in addition to the advantages and disadvantages of the approaches. Unobtrusive sensing solutions and their applications in healthcare are captured in this Chapter. The Chapter includes details of initial experimental results on post-stroke rehabilitation exercises which were obtained using thermal and radar sensing solutions. The Chapter concludes with an outline of recommendations for future research.

Authors

Smith, S., Murphy, E., Hannigan, C., Dinsmore, J., Doyle, J.

The treatment burden inherent in self-managing multiple chronic conditions (multimorbidity) is recognized, but there has been little examination of the care burden experienced by paid home health-care assistants (HCAs) who support older people with multimorbidity. Focus groups were conducted with HCAs in Ireland and data were coded using a thematic analysis approach. Care burden of HCAs was linked with lack of knowledge and information, poor communication, insufficient time and resources, gaps in medication support and work-related stress. Strategies are required to reduce the care burden of HCAs, who are essential stakeholders supporting growing numbers of older people with multimorbidity.

Authors

Giggins, OM., Muggeridge, D.

The consumer ‘wearables’ market has grown considerably over the past few years, and wrist-worn devices are becoming an increasingly popular means of monitoring physical activity, supporting people to modify and increase their physical activity levels. However the evidence regarding the accuracy of wrist-worn devices that measure heart rate (HR) has not been summarised. The aim was to conduct a systematic review to examine and summarise the literature reporting on the accuracy of wrist-worn wearable devices that measure HR.

Authors

Sheridan, P., Carragher, L., Caragher, N., Treacy, J.

The world’s population of older adults in accelerating rapidly, with associated increased healthcare demands and a growing need for skilled nursing staff. However, this sector fails to attract adequate numbers of nursing graduates as it is considered to be less attractive than other sectors and accompanied by more sources of stress, leading to a significant gap between nursing supply and demand. This paper reports the development, testing and validation of an instrument to assess the stressors experienced by student nurses during their older adult clinical placements. This quantitative study collected data from a cohort of student nurses (n=242) completing older adult clinical placements as part of their undergraduate degree. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses examined the instrument’s underlying latent structure and identified two factors labelled “Knowledge and Workload” and “Resources”. The new instrument was labelled the Student Nurse Stressor-15 (SNS-15) Scale. It contains some overlap with stressors from extant student nurse stress instruments and a number of unique stressors encountered in older adult care. The SNS-15 may assist stakeholders in nurse education and practice with the development of undergraduate degree programmes and clinical placements, and ultimately, in improving patient care and student retention.

Authors

Giggins O.M., Doyle J.

This case study evaluates heart rate (HR) measurements taken from a consumer grade and a research grade wrist-worn device. A healthy male volunteer performed a treadmill protocol of three five-minute stages (walking at 4km/h, jogging at 7km/h and running at 10km/h) while wearing an Empatica E4 and Fitbit Alta HR. A Polar H10 heart rate sensor was used as the criterion measure. As the intensity of exercises increase, the E4 device is increasingly inaccurate. The Fitbit device overestimates HR while jogging yet accurately measures HR during treadmill running. Further data are required before definitive conclusions can be made.