We think it's important to share our findings

Authors

Bond, R.,Ferri, M., Staalduinen, WH., Hinkema, MJ., Garces, J.

Authors

Carragher, L & Golding, B

To date, little attention has been placed on older men (aged 50+ years) as learners, with much of the literature on adult learning concerned with younger age-groups and issues around gender equity directed mainly at women. This article examines the impact of community-based men’s sheds on informal and nonformal learning by older men in Ireland. It considers older men’s attitudes to learning, learning behavior, and the noncognitive attributes—motivation, perseverance, and beliefs about capabilities—that underpin learning behavior. This descriptive study used a mixed-methods approach, involving questionnaires and focus groups, with all sheds registered with the Irish Men’s Sheds Association invited to participate. It is concluded that men’s sheds provide space for hands-on learning activities that add value to the lives and experiences of men beyond work, fostering a yearning to carry on learning. Crucially, shed-based conversations have an important role in helping older men with difficult life transitions and are an important site for future studies of masculinity in later life.

Authors

Doyle, J., Caprani, N., Bond, R.

Smart homes have significant potential to enhance the lives of older adults, extending the period of healthy ageing, through monitoring wellbeing, detecting decline and applying interventions to prevent or slow down this decline. In this paper we present results from interviews with 7 older adults who have been living in smart homes for over 4 years. Our aims were to 1) examine attitudes to living with sensors and AAL technology over time; 2) gather opinions on the usefulness of this data for supporting self-management of health and wellbeing and 3) evaluate the effectiveness of various visualization techniques for presenting sensor-based health and wellness data. Our findings show that older adults are interested in receiving feedback from sensor technology to support them self-managing their wellbeing. Potential beneficial information includes time spent inside and outside the home, walking time, sleep, activity, blood pressure and weight. This information needs to be enhanced by education and goal-setting and by representing data using visualisations that are simple and intuitive.

Authors

Carragher, L & Golding, Barry

Despite a growing older population and evidence of the benefits of learning for well-being, little is known about older men’s experiences of learning, the factors that influence whether they choose to engage in learning activities and what role learning plays in their lives as they grow older. The present study examined the attitudes and learning behaviours of older men participating in men’s sheds in Ireland. Our findings point to the importance of men’s sheds as sites of informal learning that encourage the sharing of skills, knowledge and wisdom of older men. We conclude that men’s sheds facilitate sensitive conversations between older men as they actively engage in constructing masculine behaviours and identities in later life.

Authors

Bond, R., Ceinos, C., Mountzi, V.

Authors

Caprani, N., Doyle, J., Komaba, Y., Inomata, A.

Monitoring technologies and sensors have huge potential to support elderly people live independently at home. Providing healthcare professionals with access to sensor data displaying a patient’s activities and health vitals could deliver numerous benefits, including allowing continuous care, presenting positive/negative trends which HCPs can act upon, or alerting to immediate problems. This paper presents three phases of early-stage research from a larger study, which is concerned with investigating how sensor technologies can be utilised to facilitate frail elderly people transition from hospital to home. The focus of the research discussed in this paper is to explore health care professionals preferences for using and visualising sensor data. This paper describes the collection of real-world gait in a cohort of 7 community living older adults, who have fallen at least once in the previous year, while they live in a smart apartment for four days. It describes the approach used to collect various gait metrics, from inertial sensors placed on the lower shanks, where gait bouts can be contextualised by smart home data. Results from this study are presented with a brief discussion into the smart home based contextualisation of outliers in the gait data. Future work will investigate the normative ranges of various gait metrics, and how such real-world gait data may be integrated into clinical practice.

Authors

Wilson, M., Doyle, J. and McTaggart, G.

We are experiencing an increase in the number of older adults. This presents both challenges and opportunities in the field of HCI research in terms of health self-management technology. This paper presents on-going work to design a mobile application that supports older adults in managing stress and sleep. The aim is to explore if sensor technology and a tablet application can be used to present intuitive feedback on stress levels and sleeping patterns with a view to reducing stress, improving sleep quality and increasing health and well-being overall.