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Ageing with telecare: care or coercion in austerity?

Research output: Contribution to Journal/MagazineJournal articlepeer-review

Published
<mark>Journal publication date</mark>07/2013
<mark>Journal</mark>Sociology of Health and Illness
Issue number6
Volume35
Number of pages14
Pages (from-to)799-812
Publication StatusPublished
Early online date25/10/12
<mark>Original language</mark>English
EventThe Use of Assistive Technologies in Social Care - Scottish Universities Insight Institute, Glasgow, United Kingdom
Duration: 17/10/201318/10/2013

Conference

ConferenceThe Use of Assistive Technologies in Social Care
Country/TerritoryUnited Kingdom
CityGlasgow
Period17/10/1318/10/13

Abstract

In recent years images of independence, active ageing and staying at home have come to characterise a successful old age in western societies. ‘Telecare’ technologies are heavily promoted to assist ageing-in-place and a nexus of demographic ageing, shrinking healthcare and social care budgets and technological ambition has come to promote the ‘telehome’ as the solution to the problem of the ‘age dependency ratio’. Through the adoption of a range of monitoring and telecare devices, it seems that the normative vision of independence will also be achieved. But with falling incomes and pressure for economies of scale, what kind of independence is experienced in the telehome? In this article we engage with the concepts of ‘technogenarians’ and ‘shared work’ to illuminate our analysis of telecare in use. Drawing on European-funded research we argue that home-monitoring based telecare has the potential to coerce older people unless we are able to recognise and respect a range of responses including non-use and ‘misuse’ in daily practice. We propose that re-imagining the aims of telecare and redesigning systems to allow for creative engagement with technologies and the co-production of care relations would help to avoid the application of coercive forms of care technology in times of austerity.