Institut für Experimentelle Psychologie, Heinrich-Heine-Universität, Düsseldorf, Germany.
Gerontology. 2013;59(1):77-84. doi: 10.1159/000339096. Epub 2012 Jul 25.
The ability to remember future intentions is compromised in both healthy and cognitively impaired older adults. Assistive technology provides older adults with promising solutions to cope with this age-related problem. However, the effectiveness and efficiency of such systems as memory aids is seldom evaluated in controlled, randomized trials.
We evaluated the effectiveness of a memory aid system, the InBad (engl. InBath), for bathroom-related daily care. Conceptually, the InBad learns user behavior patterns and detects deviations from the learned pattern in order to notify the user of a forgotten task.
We simulated a challenging morning routine consisting of 22 bathroom activities with a sample of 60 healthy older adults. Participants were randomly assigned to three groups: (1) 'no memory support', i.e., participants received no support at all, (2) 'list support', i.e., participants could retrieve a list of all activities, and (3) 'system support', i.e., participants received prompts for specific activities that had not yet been executed.
Both support groups executed significantly more activities compared to the 'no support' group. In addition, system support resulted in significantly better performance compared to list support with no significant differences between the two groups in overall task duration.
The assistive support system was the most effective and efficient memory aid. The results suggest that assistive technology has the potential to enable older adults to remain safe and independent in their own home.
健康和认知能力受损的老年人都无法记住未来的意图。辅助技术为老年人提供了有希望的解决方案来应对这一与年龄相关的问题。然而，作为记忆辅助工具的此类系统的有效性和效率很少在对照、随机试验中进行评估。
我们评估了记忆辅助系统 InBad（英文：InBath）在浴室相关日常护理方面的有效性。从概念上讲，InBad 学习用户的行为模式，并检测到与所学模式的偏差，以便通知用户忘记执行的任务。
我们用 60 名健康老年人模拟了一项具有挑战性的早晨例行活动，包括 22 项浴室活动。参与者被随机分配到三个组：（1）“无记忆支持”，即参与者没有得到任何支持，（2）“列表支持”，即参与者可以检索所有活动的列表，以及（3）“系统支持”，即参与者会收到尚未执行的特定活动的提示。
两个支持组执行的活动明显多于“无支持”组。此外，系统支持的表现明显优于列表支持，而两组在总任务持续时间方面没有显著差异。
辅助支持系统是最有效和高效的记忆辅助工具。结果表明，辅助技术有可能使老年人能够在自己的家中保持安全和独立。
