Role of immersive experience technology for autonomy in older adults transitioned into assisted living: A user-centered design approach

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to explore how immersive experience technology may impact older adults in transition into assisted living; through the perspective of older adults within those assisted living facilities. By creating a preliminary/exploratory study for future applied research, the goal of this study was to gather information on understanding and then specifying the resident's experiences in their transitions and their perspectives on the barriers and benefits in the use of immersive experience technologies prior to transitions. Understanding and specifying user needs are the first two steps in user-centered design, which helped guide this research, and will inform future research in production and evaluation of an immersive experience intervention design. This study was broken up into three phases, Phases 1 and 2 were two focus groups to gather qualitative data and Phase 3 was an online survey questionnaire to gather quantitative responses. The Phase 3 data is only included in the Appendix due to low response rates. Findings of this study revealed that loss of autonomy occurs prior to the transition, following two types of transitions; independent and dependent. The two types of transitions were found to have two different intervention paths, independent transitions leading to limited to no intervention and the dependent transitions having the children as the primary intervention. It was suggested that the virtual walkthrough would help improve autonomy in the independently transitioned older adults, through easing concern during the transition, as well as improving navigation and control within the new assisted living apartment once the transition is complete.