New technologies such as mobile/smartphones have the potential to help senior people perform everyday activities. However, senior people may find it difficult using mobile/smartphones, especially the digital calendar and short text message features. Therefore, senior people might need user-friendly, flexible, and interactive digital calendars that provide them with active reminders about their everyday activities. This study focuses on community dwelling seniors’ experiences learning and using RemindMe, an interactive digital calendar with active reminders, as part of customizing an intervention appropriate for senior people with cognitive impairments. Four focus groups were conducted with 20 community dwelling seniors (11 men and 9 women) who all had used RemindMe for six weeks. The focus groups were tape recorded, transcribed verbatim, and analysed using content analysis. For participants in this study, using a calendar was an essential part of their everyday lives, but only a few had experiences using a digital calendar. Although the participants described RemindMe as easy to use, they had a difficult time incorporating RemindMe into their daily routines. In part, these difficulties were the result of the participants needing to change their mobile/smartphone routines. Some participants felt that using an interactive digital calendar was a sign of modernity allowing them to take part in the society at large, but others felt that their inability to use the technology was due to their age, dependence, and loss of function. Participants found that receiving active reminders through short text messages followed by actively acknowledging the reminder helped them perform more everyday life activities. This feature gave them a higher sense of independence and control. Community dwelling seniors found that RemindMe was easy to learn and to use, although they also found it challenging to integrate into their everyday lives. For senior people to make the effort to develop new routines for mobile/smartphone use, a prerequisite for using a digital calendar, they need to be motivated and believe that the technology will make their lives better.

Use of eye-gaze assistive technology (EGAT) provides children/youths with severe motor and speech impairments communication opportunities by using eyes to control a communication interface on a computer. However, knowledge about how using EGAT contributes to communication and influences dyadic interaction remains limited. Aim: By video-coding dyadic interaction sequences, this study investigates the impacts of employing EGAT, compared to the Non-EGAT condition on the dyadic communicative interaction. Method: Participants were six dyads with children/youths aged 4–19 years having severe physical disabilities and complex communication needs. A total of 12 film clips of dyadic communication activities with and without EGAT in natural contexts were included. Based on a systematic coding scheme, dyadic communication behaviors were coded to determine the interactional structure and communicative functions. Data were analyzed using a three-tiered method combining group and individual analysis. Results: When using EGAT, children/youths increased initiations in communicative interactions and tended to provide more information, while communication partners made fewer communicative turns, initiations, and requests compared to the Non-EGAT condition. Communication activities, eye-control skills, and communication abilities could influence dyadic interaction. Conclusion: Use of EGAT shows potential to support communicative interaction by increasing children’s initiations and intelligibility, and facilitating symmetrical communication between dyads.

The aim of this study is to increase evidence-based interventions by investigating the feasibility of an intervention using an interactive digital calendar with mobile phone reminders (RemindMe) as support in everyday life. Qualitative and quantitative data were collected from participating patients (n = 8) and occupational therapists (n = 7) from three rehabilitation clinics in Sweden. The intervention consisted of delivering the interactive digital calendar RemindMe, receiving an individualized introduction, a written manual, and individual weekly conversations for two months with follow-up assessments after two and four months. Feasibility areas of acceptability, demand, implementation, practicality, and integration were examined. Patients expressed their interest and intention to use RemindMe and reported a need for reminders and individualized support. By using reminders in activities in everyday life their autonomy was supported. The study also demonstrated the importance of confirming reminders and the possible role of habit-forming. Occupational therapists perceived the intervention to be useful at the rehabilitation clinics and the weekly support conversations enabled successful implementation. This study confirmed the importance of basing and tailoring the intervention to patients’ needs and thus being person-centered.

Eye-gaze technology allows individuals with severe physical disabilities and complex communication needs to control a computer or other devices with eye-gaze, thereby enabling them to communicate and participate in society. To date, most research on eye-gaze controlled devices related to persons with disabilities has focused on a single diagnosis in either adults or children and has included only a few participants. This current study utilized a total population survey to identify the prevalence and perceived usability of eye-gaze technology among adults and children in Sweden. Participants were 171 eye-gaze technology users with severe physical and communication impairments, ranging between 4 and 81 years. Cerebral palsy was the most common diagnosis. Daily usage was found in 63%, while 33% had weekly, and 4% had less frequent usage. Adults, compared with children, reported using their computers more frequently (65%/38%; p < 0.01), and for the activities they needed to perform (59%/31%; p < 0.01) and were more satisfied with services, indicating that service providers should prioritize and develop more effective services for children and their parents.

Assistive technology (AT) can be used as early intervention in order to reduce activity limitations in play and communication. This longitudinal case study examines eye-gaze control technology as early intervention for a young child with high spinal cord injury without the ability to make sounds. The young child was followed by repeated measures concerning performance and communication from baseline at 9 months to 26 months, and finalized at 36 months by field observations in the home setting. The results showed eye-gaze performance and frequency of use of eye-gaze control technology increased over time. Goals set at 15 months concerning learning and using the AT; naming objects and interactions with family was successfully completed at 26 months. Communicative functions regarding obtaining objects and social interaction increased from unintentional actions to purposeful choices and interactions. At 36 months, the toddler was partly independent in eye gazing, used all activities provided, and made independent choices. In conclusion, the results show that a 9-month-old child with profound motor disabilities can benefit from eye-gaze control technology in order to gradually perform activities, socially interact with family members, and make choices.

Introducing advanced assistive technology such as eye gaze controlled computers can improve a person’s quality of life and awaken hope for a child’s future inclusion and opportunities in society. This article explores the meanings of parents’ and teachers’ other-oriented hope related to eye gaze technology for children with severe disabilities. A secondary analysis of six parents’ and five teachers’ interview transcripts was conducted in accordance with a phenomenological-hermeneutic research method. The eye gaze controlled computer creates new imaginations of a brighter future for the child, but also becomes a source for motivation and action in the present. The other-oriented hope occurs not just in the future; it is already there in the present and opens up new alternatives and possibilities to overcome the difficulties the child is encountering today. Both the present situation and the hope for the future influence each other, and both affect the motivation for using the technology. This emphasises the importance of clinicians giving people opportunities to express how they see the future and how technology could realise this hope.