Many Thanks

Many thanks to Telehealth and Telecare Aware (www.telecareaware.com) for their lovely write up on the DTA: the Dependability Telecare Assessment tool - The Person-centred Telecare Assessment manual which can be found here http://telecareaware.com/dependability-telecare-assessment-tool-released.

DTA: the Dependability Telecare Assessment tool manual is only available from the gdewsbury.com/dta website. It costs £19.99 which includes free first class UK postage and packaging.

DTA: The Dependability Telecare Assessment tool

New Book Press Release

“Only install sufficient telecare to enable a person.”

gdewsbury are proud to announce their most recent publication: 

DTA: The Dependability Telecare Assessment tool 

The ‘Person-Centred Telecare Assessment’

A new manual, published on the 15^th September 2014, by Guy Dewsbury PhD and Debbie Ballard of gdewsbury.  Written for practitioners and professionals who assess, provide or install telecare including people who work with assistive technology.  DTA is also relevant to the academic sector and can be a learning resource in any telecare course and is core reading on the postgraduate telecare course at Edinburgh University.

The Dependability Telecare Assessment tool (DTA) is a new independent assessment tool, which puts the person at the start, the middle and the finish of any assessment.  It considers the whole person, their needs, their activities and their wishes.  This assessment tool can be used in conjunction with existing care assessments.  As a result, a more transparent and accountable assessment is undertaken which clearly demonstrates the rationale for any equipment proposed.

Adding to the existing knowledge on telecare assessments, the manual provides a unique method to determine appropriate telecare for a person.  The DTA matrix comprises four key properties, each of which incorporates three individual elements. The manual also provides three Outcome and Review forms in the Appendix.  This manual provides best practice advice on how to deploy the DTA in the field.   

This manual represents a new technique for thinking about telecare assessments and demonstrates a qualitative way to consider telecare’s relationship with people in need of additional support. 

DTA is a culmination of many years of academic ethnographic research with older and disabled people in the design of telecare technology to support them. When gdewsbury (www.gdewsbury.com) formed in 2012, it proved to be the appropriate time to write and publish DTA as a manual for professionals. A key theme throughout DTA is “only install sufficient telecare to enable a person. Excessive use of telecare could disable a person.”

For people in health, social care, housing, academia or a private professional in a field related to telecare this manual is essential reading.

The spiral bound A4 manual (ISBN 978-0-9930485-0-0) is available through PayPal from gdewsbury www.gdewsbury.com/dta at a price of only £19.99 with free p&p in the UK, outside the UK p&p charges apply. 

If you would like to obtain a copy this manual or would like more information, please contact gdewsbury.com@gmail.com. 

gdewsbury are Dr Guy Dewsbury and Debbie Ballard

When technology turns to help people

For those who follow my twitter feed (@dewsbury) I mentioned how the Xbox’s always aware functionality caused Xboxes to switch on when Aaron Paul says in the advert says ‘Xbox on’ people report their Xboxes switching on (see http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-27827545). This annoying functionality does have its upside as well as the downside.  

With the recent Google IO (https://www.google.com/events/io) it was mentioned that the new Android operating system will have a always aware functionality, so even in the closed state it will still listen for the command ‘OK Google’. This for some might be a little worrying, especially in the light of Facebook’s attempt to be constantly aware and record the sounds in your environment whilst you use its app (http://guardianlv.com/2014/05/facebook-has-new-microphone-application/).

 

Therefore, the benefits of always-aware applications might not appear to outweigh the security and privacy issues.  This was certainly my belief, until I was alerted, by my bother to an article in the ABC news (http://kstp.com/news/stories/S3484579.shtml?cat=127) in which a two year old uses Siri (the voice aware IOS platform) to call for emergency services as her mother suffered from “an autonomic nervous system disorder that causes her to faint”. The child was taught to press the button and say call emergency services, if her mother fell over, which was the case at the time.

As telecare and telehealth devices evolve the standard pendant, based technologies will be surpassed by smarter more common/mundane technologies such as the standard mobile phone.  Many smart phones have the ability to dial numbers through speech input and this will only increase over time as operating systems become smarter. The advent of smart watches will also add to this if they have accelerometers built into them and can determine if a person has fallen.

The rise in health apps (see http://phonesngagdets.blogspot.co.uk/2014/06/my-favourite-fitness-app-virtuagym-www.html) can only be a good thing as the poor ones will eventually be weeded out and the best ones will remain. Adding the ability to determine health characteristics is essential to make the move from a mobile phone being a standard communication tool to being a fully interactive useful piece of hardware. 

It is good news that technology is finally being used appropriately to help people in a number of ways. One such way that caught my eye was the Brianwriter (http://www.techrepublic.com/article/the-brainwriter-the-200-open-source-wearable-for-the-paralyzed-that-can-read-and-write-thoughts/#ftag=RSS56d97e7) which turns your thoughts into drawings and communications.  This was originally designed for people who were paralysed and in many ways is better or more promising than Oculus Rift (http://www.oculusvr.com/) or Google Glass (http://www.google.co.uk/glass/start/).

We are at the dawn of an incredible change in the way in which technology can be used to make people’s live better and facilitate their safety. I just hope that my idealistic dreams is not proved wrong. Technology developed for one thing can reused and re-purposed for something else. My fingers are crossed.