A ubiquitous photo frame to provide reminders to older adults

Abstract

Over the years people tend to forget activities that take place every day, and particularly those ones that they do not carried out frequently. Forgetting activities is a common problem in various older adults. In the article it is analyzed how the Information and Communication Technologies can help elder people to manage this problem, but these people may not feel confident or comfortable to use a software application or a device. Therefore, we propose the use of common and ordinary objects to provide reminders that will allow preventing the forgetfulness of carrying out daily activities. As a first attempt, the current proposal consists of using a photo frame to provide these reminders. The developed prototype, using mobile devices, has been evaluated applying case study research. The results showed that the proposed idea was well received by the participants. Moreover, the participants suggested that other older adults could use our proposal to receive reminders easily and ubiquitously trying to prevent them from forgetting what they should/need/must do.

Keywords

• older adults
• reminders
• photo frame
• mobile devices