The electronic, personalizable Rosetta system for dementia care: exploring the user-friendliness, usefulness and impact

Abstract

Purpose: This research aimed to integrate three previously developed assistive technology (AT) systems into one modular, multifunctional system, which can support people with dementia and carers throughout the course of dementia. . In an explorative evaluation study, the integrated system, called Rosetta, was tested on usefulness, user-friendliness and impact, in people with dementia, their informal carers and professional carers involved. The Rosetta system was installed in participants‘ homes in three countries: The Netherlands, Germany and Belgium. Methods: Controlled trial with pre- and post-test measures across three countries (randomized controlled trial in Germany; matched groups in the Netherlands and Belgium). Participants completed questionnaires for impact measurement and participated in semi-structured interviews regarding usefulness and user-friendliness of Rosetta. Results: All participants agreed that Rosetta is a very useful development. They did not rate the user-friendliness of the system highly. No significant effects were found on impact measurements. Conclusion: All participants found Rosetta a very useful development for future care, and would consider using it. Since Rosetta was still in development during evaluation, a discrepancy between expectations and actual functioning of Rosetta existed, which may explain the lack of findings on the impact of the system and the low appreciation of user-friendliness.

Implications for Rehabilitation

• People with dementia and carers find assistive technology (AT) a useful future development and they are willing to use it in the future.

• People with dementia and carers have little privacy issues with AT. If they have concerns, they are willing to accept the trade-off of reduced privacy in exchange for the ability to live in their own homes for longer.

• Given that a system works flawlessly, informal carers indicate that integrated AT can reduce their burden and stress. This can in turn help informal carers to provide better care for a longer period of time.

• Assistive devices
• dementia
• informal care
• self-help devices

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank all people with dementia and their carers that participated in the workshops, focus groups and the evaluation trial as well as their professional carers who participated in this study.

Declaration of interest

The authors declare that there is no conflict of interest.

The Rosetta project was funded by the EU [AAL-2008-1-143] and national (governmental funding) institutes of the participating countries. Additional funding was received from Foundation Vita Valley.