What is it about?
The use of video monitoring in the home has been suggested as one way that families or caregivers can make sure a person living with dementia is safe whilst allowing them independence. Conversations about this often bring up issues of safety and privacy and how needs of people living with dementia as well as caregivers can be met.
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Why is it important?
As a population we are getting older. By 2050 the global population of older people is predicted to be twice as large as it was in 2015. With this rise, the number of people with dementia is also expected to rise from 45 million in 2013 to 136 million in 2050 and care options need to be developed to meet this need. Families often play a key role in caring for the person and more people wish to remain in their own homes. For someone with dementia this can result in risks, such as wandering out of the home. Families and carers often want to help their family member stay at home but are also concerned about their safety which can be stressful. Some work has been carried out in residential care with 87% of relatives agreeing with the use of video surveillance, 63% of staff but only 47% of residents. There had not been any work looking at the opinions of people who are being cared for, or who are caring for someone in their own homes and it is this group of people the paper included. Twenty four people, some with dementia (2 people) and some who are family and carers of a person with dementia (22 people) discussed questions such as those below: Can you describe your views on using a video camera in the home? What are the three best and three worst things in having a video camera in the home? What would you include if you were in charge of designing video cameras for the home?
Perspectives
When talking to healthcare professionals and scientists about using video surveillance in the homes of people living with dementia, the response was always that this was not an ethical thing to do, or that the ethics of managing such surveillance were very complex. However, in everyday life, family carers of people living with dementia are buying app-based video surveillance solutions off the shelf to help them balance their normal work day activities with glimpses of their family member with dementia, living in their own home. To me, this meant that the understanding of the use of video surveillance in the homes of people living with dementia was not being addressed, while society had already made the decision to move on and use the technology! The results from this small pilot study help bolster support for a larger research study to learn the views of people living with dementia, together with their family caregivers, and to inform healthcare policy making in this area in the future.
Prof Maurice D Mulvenna
University of Ulster
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Views of Caregivers on the Ethics of Assistive Technology Used for Home Surveillance of People Living with Dementia, Neuroethics, January 2017, Springer Science + Business Media,
DOI: 10.1007/s12152-017-9305-z.
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