Tackling Barriers to Adoption of Assisted Living Technology for Older Adults

The COBALT project is examining the gap between the development of assistive living technologies (ALTs) aimed at supporting older adults and take-up of these devices by the target population. Our approach is to work with older adults as experts to understand what they like and dislike about technology and how they make decisions to adopt or abandon new technology and devices. To achieve this we are looking at items people love and use in their every day lives as well as items they have abandoned. We are also finding out about how people explore new technologies and what factors are important for them making decisions about adoption. Alongside older adults we are also working with health and social care providers at different levels to understand the factors that influence provision and support of ALTs to older adults. We are working with front line staff to explore their attitudes to technology generally and ALTs in particular. We are also interviewing commissioners and service providers to identify key influencers in the provision of ALTs to older adults. Finally, we are working with industry to understand the key decision-making points where we can try to bridge the gap with their end-users. Our overall aim is to bring all of these groups together in a series of interactive events to help them understand and learn from each other.