Examining Mobile Technologies to Support Older Adults With Dementia Through the Lens of Personhood and Human Needs: Scoping Review

Abstract

Background: With the world's rapidly growing older adult population, there is an increase in the number of people living with dementia. This growth leads to a strain on their caregivers and our health care system and to an increased attention on mitigating strain by using mobile technology to sustain the independence of people with dementia. However, less attention is given to whether these technologies meet the stated and unstated needs of people with dementia.

Objective: The aim of this study was to provide an overview of the current research on mobile technologies for people with dementia, considering the current research through the lens of personhood and human needs, and to identify any gaps that represent research opportunities.

Methods: We performed a systematic search in Medical Literature Analysis and Retrieval System Online (MEDLINE), Web of Science, PsycINFO, Cumulative Index of Nursing and Allied Health Literature (CINAHL), Excerpta Medica dataBASE (EMBASE), and the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL) in October 2018. We screened 5560 articles and identified 24 that met our inclusion and exclusion criteria. We then performed thematic analysis to organize the articles by the types of support mobile technologies provide and mapped those types of support to human needs to identify the gaps in support.

Results: Articles described research on mobile technologies that support people with dementia to (1) perform daily activities, (2) maintain social interaction, (3) aid memory, (4) engage in leisure activities, (5) track location, and (6) monitor health. At least one type of support mapped to each human need, with most supporting lower-level needs such as physiological and safety needs. Little attention seems to be paid to personhood.

Conclusions: Mobile technologies that support daily activities, relationships, memory, leisure activities, health, and safety can partially compensate for decreased function owing to dementia, but the human needs of people with dementia are often not adequately considered. Most technologies support basic physiological and safety needs, whereas many pay little attention to higher-level needs such as self-esteem and agency. Important research opportunities include using person-centered methods to develop technology to meet higher-level needs and to preserve personhood by incorporating human and psychological needs of people with dementia along with ethical considerations.

Keywords: Alzheimer disease; consumer health informatics; dementia; mobile health; mobile phone; personhood; smartphone; systematic review; tablet computers.

Figure 1

Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses diagram.

Figure 2

The number of publications per year (N=26). Publications by Lancioni et al [28] and Megges et al [38] are depicted twice as both a tablet and a smartphone were used in the study. We designated “mobile phone” when the article mentioned the use of a mobile phone without the use of apps or functions of a smartphone. PDA: personal digital assistant.