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. 2017;10(2):255-266.
doi: 10.1007/s12152-017-9305-z. Epub 2017 Jan 24.

Views of Caregivers on the Ethics of Assistive Technology Used for Home Surveillance of People Living with Dementia

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Views of Caregivers on the Ethics of Assistive Technology Used for Home Surveillance of People Living with Dementia

Maurice Mulvenna et al. Neuroethics. 2017.

Abstract

This paper examines the ethics of using assistive technology such as video surveillance in the homes of people living with dementia. Ideation and concept elaboration around the introduction of a camera-based surveillance service in the homes of people with dementia, typically living alone, is explored. The paper reviews relevant literature on surveillance of people living with dementia, and summarises the findings from ideation and concept elaboration workshops, designed to capture the views of those involved in the care of people living with dementia at home. The research question relates to the ethical considerations of using assistive technologies that include video surveillance in the homes of people living with dementia, and the implications for a person living with dementia whenever video surveillance is used in their home and access to the camera is given to the person's family. The review of related work indicated that such video surveillance may result in loss of autonomy or freedom for the person with dementia. The workshops reflected the findings from the related work, and revealed useful information to inform the service design, in particular in fine-tuning the service to find the best relationship between privacy and usefulness. Those who took part in the workshops supported the concept of the use of camera in the homes of people living with dementia, with some significant caveats around privacy. The research carried out in this work is small in scale but points towards an acceptance by many caregivers of people living with dementia of surveillance technologies. This paper indicates that those who care for people living with dementia at home are willing to make use of camera technology and therefore the value of this work is to help shed light on the direction for future research.

Keywords: Alzheimer’s disease; Assistive technology; Autonomy; Cameras; Dementia; Ethics; Independent living; Surveillance; Video.

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Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Schematic architecture showing main technical components that comprise the ‘Video Surveillance as a Service’ solution
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Camera located in non-private central space like a hallway which is good for activity monitoring yet minimises intrusion
Fig. 3
Fig. 3
Screen shot of video camera set up as for use in hallway
Fig. 4
Fig. 4
Camera screen shot showing visability of person in hallway
Fig. 5
Fig. 5
Question responses on (a) concept and (b) ease of use of camera (Error bars represent 95% confidence intervals and the p-values were derived using Chi-square testing in the R programming environment)
Fig. 6
Fig. 6
Question responses on (a) appropriateness of the concept in home of people living with dementia and (b) in home of older people generally (Error bars represent 95% confidence intervals and the p-values were derived using Chi-square testing in the R programming environment)

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