Assistive technology in or out of context? - an evolving challenge to increasing utility and adoption

Assistive technology in or out of context? - an evolving challenge to increasing utility and adoption

Disability is a global growing concern. Equally, there have also been growing difficulties in the understanding of the situations of disability given their diversity, complexity, and how assistive technologies (ATs) could fully assist people living with disabilities. These challenges have contributed enormously to the exacerbation of the misunderstanding of modulating factors of disabilities such as person-environment interaction (social belief) and existing evolving health conditions (medical belief) resulting in prohibitive disservice to disabled people requiring support. The results are limited to ATs’ capabilities and low adoption. Factors that could be driving these non-user-centred proliferated ATs include, but are not limited to 1. An increasing polarised definition of disability in the scholarly literature; and 2. Context-problem design, selection, and use of ATs as an intervention. The WHO’s statistics show that one billion people - both young and old experience some form of disability. We not only have a general increase in people living with disabilities there is also traceable evidence suggesting specifically, increasing aging societies with chronic debilitating diseases as with overall population increase. On the one hand, person-centered and context-driven AT as a device or system could provide applied solutions to daily life activities for persons living with any form of disability – physical and mental. There are equally evolving, however, complicated models/frameworks of ATs that seek to provide stakeholders with the understanding of the contexts in which ATs might fully assist and in the process, impact on design parameters and adoption factors. In this chapter, the author endeavors to lay bare different but contextual user factors to improve patient-centered design and ultimately improve adoption pathways. To do this, the author will critically review and ATs use, and other relevant literature to provide an understanding of 'ATs', what they are, what they are not, and the context in which their potential utility would likely be maximized.

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