Adoption and Determinants of Assistive Technologies in the Real World: Results from the VdK Study.

Introduction: While there is growing evidence of the benefits of assistive technologies little is known about their adoption under real circumstances and prevalence for everyday use.

Objective: The aim of this analysis therefore was (i) to investigate the adoption rates in the real world and (ii) to identify potential determinants of their adoption by care-dependant persons and family caregivers.

Methods: The present study is a secondary analysis based on the data set of the VdK study on home care arrangements (n=53,678). The analysis of the adoption rates included 22,666 care-dependant persons and caregivers, the identification of potential determinants via binary logistic regressions included 5,275 persons.

Results: Emergency call systems and technical (smart) aids reached an adoption rate of 40.4 % (care-dependant persons) and 55.3 % (family caregivers). Fall detectors, orientations aids, nursing apps and monitoring systems were used in less than 5 % of the cases. Care degree and the use of an ambulatory nursing service increased the likelihood of using technical aids.

Conclusion: It can be concluded that innovative and sophisticated types of assistive technologies are still rather scarcely used for home care arrangements in the real world despite large research efforts in the last twenty years.