Differential Physiological and Pathological Aspects of the Elderly, to Be Taken Into Account in Health Surveillance and Care
Alejandro Rodríguez-Molinero, Consorci Sanitari de l'Alt Penedès i Garraf, Spain
Trust in Chatbots: Implications for the Inclusive Design for the Elderly Users
Effie Lai-Chong Law, Durham University, United Kingdom
Digital Health and the Third Age: Avoiding New Gen Inequalities
Claudia Pagliari, University of Edinburgh, United Kingdom
Differential Physiological and Pathological Aspects of the Elderly, to Be Taken Into Account in Health Surveillance and Care
Alejandro Rodríguez-Molinero
Consorci Sanitari de l'Alt Penedès i Garraf
Spain
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Brief Bio
Graduated in medicine at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, in 2001. In 2005, he attended the Academic Program in the Medical Specialties in Geriatric Medicine and Palliative Care at the Brookdale Department of Geriatric and Adult Development, Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York. In 2006, he completed the specialization in Geriatrics at the Hospital Central de la Cruz Roja in Madrid. In 2009 he was awarded the PhD degree in Preventive Medicine and Public Health at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Spain. In 2010 he was appointed Adjunct Professor in Gerontechnology at the School of Engineering and Informatics, NUI Galway. Currently, he is responsible for the research area of the Consorci Sanitari Alt Penedès-Garraf, in Barcelona, Spain. As researcher he has worked in numerous European research projects, leading the development of new ICT technologies devoted to independent living and health promotion in the elderly.
Abstract
Due to the special physiological characteristics of the elderly, diseases occur in them and evolve differently than they do in the younger population. The poor functional reserve of the organs of the elderly and the frequent coexistence of various pathologies and treatments cause many diseases to manifest with few or atypical symptoms, and have health consequences that are different from those of the young. Therefore, preventive strategies and health surveillance of the elderly must be specifically adapted to this population.
This presentation will review the main differential aspects of health and disease in the elderly, and their impact on the design of successful technologies for their surveillance and care.
Trust in Chatbots: Implications for the Inclusive Design for the Elderly Users
Effie Lai-Chong Law
Durham University
United Kingdom
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Brief Bio
Prof. Effie Lai-Chong Law is a full professor of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) at the Department of Computer Science, Durham University. She obtained her PhD in psychology from the University of Munich (LMU), Germany and became a research fellow at ETH Zurich, Switzerland. Since 2005, she has worked in School of Informatics, University of Leicester, UK, before joining Durham in September 2021. Her main research focus is usability and user experience (UX) methodologies with technology-enhanced learning (TEL) being a key application domain. Her recent research foci are mixed reality, multidimensional measurement of UX, multisensory emotion recognition, and conversational AI (chatbots), which have significant relevance to education, health and well-being.
Effie was the chair of two EU COST Actions on HCI design and evaluation methodologies: COST294-MAUSE and COST IC0904-TwinTide. She played a leading role in a number of EU TEL projects, including 80Days (game-based learning), ROLE (open and responsive learning environment), Go-Lab/Next-Lab (online labs), and the running ARETE (Augmented Reality Interactive Educational Systems). She was also involved in several national projects such as ESRC Law in Children’s Lives (a tablet game for assessing legal competence), STFC C3AOL (cross-cultural online collaborative learning), and the running UKRI Trustworthy Autonomous Systems (TAS) Verifiability Node. Effie’s main contribution to these projects was applying the Human-centred Design (HCD) approaches to the design and evaluation of the bespoke technologies to ensure their use quality.
Effie has authored more than 200 peer-reviewed papers. She is serving as associate editor for two reputed journals: International Journal of Human-Computer Studies (IJHCS) and Interacting with Computers (IwC), and also a scientific co-chair of prestigious conferences such as Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI).
Abstract
Chatbots, or conversational agents, are AI-powered autonomous systems that interact with users through natural language, simulating text- and voice-based human-human dialogues. Among others, trust is a decisive factor for determining users’ acceptance and adoption of chatbots. Trust is even more critical when essential services such as healthcare and finance are delivered through such AI-infused digital agents. Our recent research work investigates how trust in a banking chatbot varies with its performance (e.g., breakdown with repair) and whether the users’ age and other demographic variables play a significant role in trust. Insights gained from this work enable us to explore implications for designing chatbots for the elderly users. While chatbots have potential to improve the quality of life of older people, existing research suggests that they do not fully benefit from such emerging technologies because of the low usage engendered by lack of trust. Older people’s distrust in trustworthy chatbots can lead to digital marginalization, whereas their mistrust in non-trustworthy chatbots can cause severe loss of personal resources. We posit that these concerns can be addressed by enhancing the inclusiveness of the chatbot design from the usability and user experience perspective.
Digital Health and the Third Age: Avoiding New Gen Inequalities
Claudia Pagliari
University of Edinburgh
United Kingdom
Brief Bio
Claudia Pagliari is a senior lecturer and researcher within the Usher Institute of Population Health Sciences and Informatics at the University of Edinburgh Medical School, where she leads a research programme on eHealth and directs the MSc in Global eHealth. With a background in social science and health technology assessment, her research is highly interdisciplinary and covers many areas of eHealth and the digital society. This includes the study and evaluation of emerging innovations (for example: direct-to-consumer genetic testing, therapeutic robots, apps), large-scale health IT programmes (for example: human resource information management systems, administrative data research, e-Government), new forms of data for science (for example: social media and crowdsourcing), technologies for global health system strengthening, and ethical and responsible research and innovation.
Abstract
Worldwide, digital health innovations are opening up new opportunities for people and communities to thrive through convenient access to services and data, as well as the promise of personal health empowerment. Researchers, pundits and policymakers have heralded this brave new world and investment has poured into the digital aging sector. Yet, experience is proving the maxim that the future isn’t evenly distributed. This talk will consider the different faces of health inequality in a digitised world, and consider how best to solve each of them, for a fair and healthy society.
Claudia Pagliari PhD FRCPE is a senior academic at the University of Edinburgh’s medical school, where she leads the interdisciplinary research group in Global eHealth. Her research draws on a range of scientific paradigms to study and understand how innovations and health systems shape one another. She has founded and led two health informatics masters programmes at UoE and was a founding member of the NHS Digital Academy. As a technical consultant and expert in digital health for the World Health Organization she has advised and contributed to reports on digital health strategy,
primary care and infodemic management. As a consultant to the Scottish Government she advised on the ethical risks of digitalisation across sectors and potential policy solutions, also chairing the national expert group in Digital Ethics. Understanding the implications of the ‘digital divide’ for future healthcare is a significant topic in her research, policy advice and teaching.