ArticleBMC medical ethics2025
Between empowerment, patronization, and surveillance. A semi-structured interview study with persons with dementia and family caregivers on the empowering opportunities and perils of intelligent assistive technologies.
Article in BMC medical ethics, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 3 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
3 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Supporting safe walking and managing missing incidents in dementia: a qualitative narrative synthesis of current evidence.Age and ageing · 2026Pooled it
- Article
- Using Crowdsourcing Internet of Things Technology to Reduce Caregiver Worry in Dementia-Related Lost Episodes: Longitudinal Observational Study.JMIR human factors · 2025Observational
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundIntelligent assistive technology (IAT) can contribute to the empowerment of persons with dementia by increasing independence, strengthening social participation, and improving quality of life. IAT could, however, also create new dependencies, reinforce power asymmetries, perpetuate stigmatization, and invade the privacy of persons living with dementia. To fulfill the empowering promise of new technologies and design a user-friendly IAT, users'perspectives, needs, capabilities and interests should be incorporated into IAT development and implementation from an early stage. Yet, the development and ethical assessment of IAT still tends to neglect the perspectives of potential user groups. This study explores how persons with dementia and their caregivers assess the empowering potential, opportunities, and risks of IAT.
methodsWe conducted a qualitative content analysis of 27 semi-structured interviews with persons with dementia (12) and their caregivers (15). Three technologies (GPS bracelet, dressing technology, and emotion recognition technology) were presented in the interviews using fictional case vignettes.
resultsPersons with dementia and their caregivers generally believe that IAT can potentially empower persons with dementia by improving their independence in performing daily tasks, supporting their independent mobility, increasing their physical and emotional sense of safety, and improving their social participation. The risks they identify include violations of privacy, patronization through technology, lack of user specificity, and insufficient everyday usability. Technologies are viewed very differently depending on the context, purpose of use, and user group.
conclusionIATs seem to have the potential to empower persons with dementia, but risks and benefits are perceived differently by the interviewees. The technology's usefulness depends on adapting to users' needs, capabilities, and interests. Future studies using a participatory approach that includes user preferences from the outset could lead to more user-centered technologies that promote the empowerment of persons with dementia.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.