Abstract
Aging population has become a global issue. The
sustainability of independent life of the elderly and
elderly-care services has been questioned because of
limited financial and social resources for the growing
number of older people. Toward this situation, innovative
solutions have been anticipated. Recently, ICT and
robotic technologies, especially care robots, are gaining
attentions as new solutions to support the elderly's
living and care services. However, there are still
barriers to accept care robots in living and care
environments for the elderly, for instance, the lack of
information and experience of care robots among care
workers (Turja, 2016; Määttä, Watanabe & Miwa, 2016).
Further research and development are being anticipated.
Our study focuses on the differences in acceptability to
care technologies among countries. There are different
life styles, cultural background, care policy and
practices in each country, which would strongly affect
the acceptability and needs in care technologies.
Comparative studies to examine differences in
technological acceptability and needs are still in the
emerging phase. Specifically, we are investigating these
differences between Finland and Japan. Although both
countries are economically developed and rather stable
social welfare systems, their care policy, social system
and general lifestyles are different from each other. By
comparing each country's acceptability and needs to care
technologies, meaningful insight for developing and
implementing care technologies in a global context could
be obtained.
Based on this assumption, we've been conducting a
questionnaire survey on acceptability and needs toward
care technologies in both countries. The target
respondents are active seniors, who are considered as
users of care technologies in the future. Web
questionnaire has been used to receive responses, so that
the respondents are limited in the internet users. The
questionnaire to each group has 20 questions based on
preliminary interviews with elderly people and care
workers. These questions include such topics as their
expectations and requirements for future care services,
their lifestyles, general attitude toward technology,
specific needs for care technologies and user data.
In our presentation, we will introduce the preliminary
result about acceptance and needs for care technologies
between Finnish and Japanese active seniors - the future
receivers of care and users of care robots and other
technologies. The definition of active seniors in this
study is over 65 year old people who don't receive care
yet and are not providing care to somebody else. The used
samples are 115 in Finland and 219 in Japan, which were
collected until 20 January 2017. The preliminary result
shows that Finnish respondents are more willing to using
care support technologies (e.g., walking support, washing
and toiletry support, mobility and transfer support,
medicine taking support, dementia preventing games) for
both their independent living and care services for
themselves than Japanese. Meanwhile, Finnish respondents
are less willing to using social robots than Japanese.
Furthermore, in Finland elderly people seem to most
likely receive care from a professional caregiver, whilst
in Japan the expected caregiver is the spouse. Two thirds
(67%) of the Finnish respondents expect advanced
technologies such as robotics to become more necessary to
themselves in the future, whilst about 53% of the
Japanese respondents think the same. On the other hand, a
bigger proportion (86%) of Japanese seniors see that the
distribution of advanced technologies such as robotics is
good or very good for the society, whilst 70% of the
Finnish respondents agree. We will discuss these findings
in the context of changing expectations and requirements
for elderly care work and workers.
Original language | English |
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Title of host publication | WORK 2017 |
Subtitle of host publication | Book of Abstracts |
Publisher | University of Turku |
Pages | 211-212 |
ISBN (Print) | 978-951-29-6882-4 |
Publication status | Published - 2017 |
MoE publication type | Not Eligible |
Event | 3rd International Interdisciplinary Conference on Research on Work and Working Life, WORK2017 - Turku, Finland Duration: 16 Aug 2017 → 18 Aug 2017 |
Conference
Conference | 3rd International Interdisciplinary Conference on Research on Work and Working Life, WORK2017 |
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Abbreviated title | WORK2017 |
Country/Territory | Finland |
City | Turku |
Period | 16/08/17 → 18/08/17 |
Keywords
- elderly
- acceptance
- care technologies
- Finland
- Japan