ELDERLY CASE CASE:
Problem scope: supporting the elderly to stay independent longer
Ideahackers helped a European multinational to explore the topic of elderly care, validate customer segments and their problems. Next to conducting qualitative research (50+ interviews), we executed visual prototyping, run experiments to test problem-solution fit and demand from families and seniors on the Dutch market.
Result: strongly validated set of problems, clear customer segments with specific characteristics and validated market interest for new solutions.
Year: 2018-2019
“We stay young in our minds.”
Since this validation project, our team became more and more involved in the topics of elderly care and elderly loneliness. We believe that addressing the needs of ageing seniors should be our society’s key priority. The stories and life situations of the families we’ve interviewed affected us immensely. It cannot leave you indifferent.
4/40 interviewees faced a situation when their senior parent fell at home; help arrived only hours later. 2/10 family care-takers fighting their parents’ dementia had severe burnouts. It is heartbreaking that with all the innovations in the world, this is what’s happening around us.
“Het wordt tijd dat familie zich weer meer bekommerd om ouders en schoonouders, opa's en oma’s, en wat vaker naar je oudere buren kijkt om te zorgen vóór. Dat is anders als zorgen maken óm.”
— Sylvia
In English: “It's time for the families to care more after your parents and in-laws, grandpas and grandmas, looking after the elderly neighbours. That is different from worrying about.”
Key learnings:
1. The care is human. Whenever people talk about it, they talk about caring for someone by doing physical work such as help showering, cleaning, bringing groceries or changing sheets.
2. Tech can not replace care but can become an add-on, aid to check how elderly are doing whenever somebody is not taking care of them.
3. It’s becoming more difficult and expensive for seniors to move in an elderly home. Usually, families make such a decision only when something serious happens. People that need care often cannot afford it.
4. Learning new things is getting harder at age. There is a clear division between what seniors had learned before they became less independent (before the illness, etc.) and what they’ve learned after. Their family members complain that even teaching their parents how to open & close a new lock could become a struggle.
5. Forgetfulness is one of the man reason for failing in small daily tasks. Routines and simple tasks appear more complicated with age. It’s getting harder even to open the door or pick up the phone, let alone to do taxes or use online banking.
6. Seniors do not always share all their struggles with their children because they feel that they are becoming a burden. Losing independence is an emotional subject.
”Dus als de telefoon gaat, duurt het heel lang, omdat ze dan moet opstaan, naar de telefoon moet gaan, en vergeet waar de knopjes zitten.”
— Iris
In English:
”So when the phone rings, it takes a long time because then she has to get up, go to the phone, and then forgets where the buttons are.”
Family members as ‘care-takers’:
There are two primary types of family ‘care-takers’. They look at the problem differently, whereas one group is accepting the change as inevitable and another group - taking responsibility for caring because they cannot accept seeing their elderly parents deteriorating:
Type I: warm 'care-givers' notice everyday beauty in their lives. For them, every day is a gift. They take responsibility with pride and dignity, they are more likely to be female who appreciate family gatherings, beauty and nature in their lives. You can spot them online as people who post old family photos, beautiful flowers or plants that they planted or how they have made their home just a bit better and nicer than it was before. They generally care about everything and everyone around them: from pets, home interior or plants to their extended family members.
Type II: ‘care-givers’ who do it because they should, nonetheless they accepted the fact that it is not going to get any better. People within this group are more likely to be male, accepting the change and what life brings them. They are more often commenting within the following lines:
“Het is zoals het is.” / “It is what it is.”
“Ik weet dat het niet meer beter wordt”. / “I know that it’s not going to be any better.”
“We hebben zelf ook een leven” / “We also have a life.”
Two more sub-segments that were identified were:
I-2. The ‘late children’ are more likely to be taking care of their senior parents, oftentimes when they are in the middle of their career. Any accident or illness may push them to stop working or reduce the amount of time they stay at work to do it.
I-1. The 'nearby care-givers' or family members who live the closest to the seniors become their care-givers automatically. If the seniors are parents in law, this can put an additional strain on the family relations and wellbeing of the care-giver.
Existing solutions:
Many existing solutions simply don’t work within the context of seniors’ life. Even assisting technology requires care & maintenance:
SITUATION:
Cor had an alarm button. He never pressed it, it was laying downstairs, the battery was empty. It did not work when he fell down.
Dementia is a silent threat that has enormous impact on families who face it.
JACQUELINE’S SITUATION:
Small signals gave away that something was wrong. The fridge was either empty or full; there was no logic behind it. Jacqueline’s mother became less active; once even her husband lost her in the parking area during holidays. Another day she needed mustard, but couldn’t find her favourite brand, so she concluded that the supermarket didn’t have mustard. Later, when Jacqueline decided to move back in with her parents. Jacqueline also had a 35-hour job in care. Her manager wasn’t flexible, so next to working in care, she was also taking care of her parents, which later led her to a burn-out. When Jacqueline was living with her parents, and they would wake up during the night, she would listen to which doors they opened and what was happening, trying to analyse if what they have been doing was ‘normal’.
“Het is al best lastig. Iedereen werkt, iedereen is weg dus er is niet altijd iemand aanwezig. Het is iets waar je je zorgen over maakt... Je maakt je zorgen over dat ze een keertje valt, dat ze daar ligt..”
Dementia: caregivers don’t know what is really going on.
The biggest problem for the family members is the lack of insight on what is really going on. They do not want to be controlling and check what’s happening in their parents’ homes since they consider it an intrusion into their private life. Families intervene when they believe they have to intervene, this is the moment when it’s usually too late. All of the care-givers regret that they did not intervene earlier, feeling ashamed & guilty that they missed all the signs.
Life with a sense of dread
Informal ‘care-givers’ reported that they felt constant anxiety and were thinking of everything that may go wrong when they are not next to their senior parents. This emotional rollercoaster becomes unbearable, influencing their personal life and isolating them from their social circle. At the later stages of the illness, care-givers barely interact with their social circle. There is no more social support for them; meanwhile, they genuinely need it.
As elderly parents deteriorate, it becomes more challenging for the care-givers to stay emotionally healthy. As the illness progresses, the elderly can turn in a six-year-old, may stop moving and even speaking, it is not the same person anymore. The emotional pressure and pain that this puts on the family members are unbearable.
Informal ‘care-givers’ wish for a system that would give them a continuous contact to have peace of mind and certainty that their parents are doing well.
Technology can be an aid in their life, but the care in the full sense of it should remain human.
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