inTouch is featured on the front cover of the 2013 Parliamentary Report: “Research and development work relating to assistive technology“.
This project aims to help people with dementia to connect with relatives or friends in other households as “virtual visits”, in order to reduce social isolation.
The work involved Focus Groups, Iterative Design and Home Testing, all of which involved working with end-users.
The Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) principles of Usability and Perceived Usefulness were used throughout the project to evaluate how easy the equipment was to use, and how useful the end-users thought it was.
The collaborators are Designability (Bath Institute of Medical Engineering), the Research Institute for the Care of Older People (RICE) and Dr Niki Panteli (University of Bath).
The Project Partner is the Peggy Dodd Centre, a Day Centre in Bath for people with dementia.
This project is funded by the Research in the Wild Call as part of the Digital Economy Programme. The Digital Economy Programme is a Research Councils UK cross council initiative led by EPSRC and contributed to by AHRC, ESRC, and MRC.
The work is also supported by generous donations from the Peter Sowerby Charitable Foundation, the C. Rowbotham Charitable Trust and the Dowager Countess Eleanor Peel Trust.
Please get contact Dr Hazel Boyd at Designability any queries about the project.
inTouch Project 