Technological caregiving: Supporting online activity for adults with cognitive impairments

Anne Marie Piper, Raymundo Cornejo, Lisa Hurwitz, Caitlin Unumb

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contribution

46 Scopus citations

Abstract

With much of the population now online, the field of HCI faces new and pressing issues of how to help people sustain online activity throughout their lives, including through periods of disability. The onset of cognitive impairment later in life affects whether and how individuals are able to stay connected online and manage their digital information. While caregivers play a critical role in the offline lives of adults with cognitive impairments, less is known about how they support and enable online interaction. Using a constructivist grounded theory approach, data from focus groups with caregivers of adults with cognitive impairments reveal four forms of cooperative work caregivers perform in the context of supporting online activity. We find that staying active online is a way of empowering and engaging adults with cognitive impairments, yet this introduces new forms of risk, surrogacy, and cooperative technology use to the already demanding work of caregiving.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Title of host publicationCHI 2016 - Proceedings, 34th Annual CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
PublisherAssociation for Computing Machinery
Pages5311-5323
Number of pages13
ISBN (Electronic)9781450333627
DOIs
StatePublished - May 7 2016
Event34th Annual Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, CHI 2016 - San Jose, United States
Duration: May 7 2016May 12 2016

Publication series

NameConference on Human Factors in Computing Systems - Proceedings

Other

Other34th Annual Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, CHI 2016
Country/TerritoryUnited States
CitySan Jose
Period5/7/165/12/16

Keywords

  • Caregiving
  • Social computing
  • Vulnerable populations

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Human-Computer Interaction
  • Computer Graphics and Computer-Aided Design
  • Software

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