Technology and trust : Social and technical innovation in elderly care

• A demographic change is occurring in many areas of the world. The elderly population share has been increasing for the last decades and estimations predict that this group will be large in proportion to the number of economically active younger people. This change will bring exponentially increasing costs of health care. Technical developments could be one way to meet these new challenges. In a recent study called “Safe at night” the aim was to investigate whether a technical solution based can be used to supplement the home care work, with focus on the nightly visits of the elderly. The study raises questions regarding technical issues as well as actors (users, relatives and staffs) perspective on the methods. Researchers from both social and technical disciplines were involved in the study. In this paper, we highlight the importance of scientists from different disciplines participating in the study, as well as municipalities and industry. We show in particular the knowledge gained from a technical perspective and from a social science perspective and how and why these perspectives together constitute the necessary components to create innovation regarding elderly care and issues related to technology and trust.

Subject headings

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Sociologi (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Sociology (hsv//eng)

TEKNIK OCH TEKNOLOGIER  -- Elektroteknik och elektronik (hsv//swe)

ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY  -- Electrical Engineering, Electronic Engineering, Information Engineering (hsv//eng)

Publication and Content Type

vet (subject category)

kon (subject category)