Closing the Capacity-Ability Gap: Using Technology to Support Aging With Disability

Abstract

There is a critical need to develop supports for older adults who have a wide range of abilities, including those aging with long-term impairments. Without appropriate support, many individuals will be functioning below optimal levels and will face participation barriers. Technology holds great promise to provide individualized support for a wide range of abilities and for a variety of domains. To ensure technology interventions are designed well and meet research-documented user requirements, we need more specific, actionable models to provide guidance for those developing and designing interventions. In this paper, we present the TechSAge Aging and Disability Model to bridge models from the aging and disability literatures and to disambiguate the population of individuals aging into disability from those aging with disability (i.e., pre-existing impairments). We also present the TechSAge Technology Intervention Model to support aging with pre-existing impairments, which provides direction and touch points for technology interventions. These models reflect the complex and dynamic interaction between age-related changes and an individual's prior capabilities and limitations. We describe the need for these models with respect to filling a gap in the disability and aging literature by highlighting the importance of differentiating between age-related changes and long-term impairments when designing interventions. We also show the need for quantitative and qualitative data to refine the models given complexities of the current state of the literature and survey data. The TechSAge Technology Intervention Model can be used to drive and inform technology redesign and development.

Keywords: Age-related declines; Disabilities; Intervention; Successful aging; Technology.

Figure 1.

The World Health Organization’s Public Health Framework for Healthy Ageing (WHO, 2015).

Figure 2.

Disability by age. Disability measured by self-report on six functional limitation questions regarding difficulties with hearing, seeing, cognitive activities, ambulatory activities, self-care activities, and independent living activities. Severe disability was defined as inability to engage in these activities (e.g., Deaf or unable to hear a normal conversation, blind or unable to see words and letters; Brault, 2012).

Figure 3.

The TechSAge Aging and Disability Model. The top row represents individuals who have a pre-existing impairment OR age-related changes. They have a certain Capacity that, when paired with a specific environmental or personal Context (Facilitators or Barriers), leads to more successful performance than disability in terms of their Functional Ability for activity and participation. The bottom row represents individuals who are aging AND have a pre-existing impairment. Their reduced capacity results in contextual facilitators becoming barriers (symbolized by Fs transitioning to Bs in figure) which leads to more disability than successful performance.

Figure 4.

The TechSAge Technology Intervention Model illustrates the value of a technology intervention. The top row replicates the bottom row of Figure 3 wherein individuals are aging AND have a pre-existing impairment. Their reduced capacity results in contextual facilitators becoming barriers (symbolized by Fs transitioning to Bs in figure) and hence more disability. The bottom row illustrates how a technology intervention can turn the barriers (Bs) back into facilitators (Fs), which yields more successful performance.