Family Carebook: A Case Study on Designing Peace of Mind for Family Caregivers

Family caregivers often are key to aging-in-place. They not only help with everyday activities and needs, but also tend to be a valuable part of the senior’s social network. Many family carers however experience a hard time combining care activities with their busy job and family life. At the same time, they indicate they feel insufficiently aware of the actual situation and needs of the senior, which results in worries and inefficiencies in care. Present communication systems appear to be inadequate in addressing these information needs of family carers. Towards improving awareness of family carers, and ultimately enabling peace of mind, new design directions need to be explored. This paper presents a design exploration in which an interactive communication concept was developed. The focus was on supporting the family carer. A working prototype was studied in the field. The findings from the case study suggest that both functional awareness and peace of mind need to be considered towards creating new communication services for a sustainable family care setting.