Design and Use of Assistive Technology Social, Technical, Ethical, a
Design and Use of Assistive Technology provides an interdisciplinary approach to assess some of the major hurdles in creating effective assistive technology. Assistive technology must be integrated with clinical needs, user requirements, ethical considera
- PDF / 1,684,278 Bytes
- 128 Pages / 439 x 666 pts Page_size
- 2 Downloads / 231 Views
Meeko Mitsuko K. Oishi • Ian M. Mitchell H. F. Machiel Van der Loos Editors
Design and Use of Assistive Technology Social, Technical, Ethical, and Economic Challenges Foreword by Maja J. Matari´c
123
Editors Meeko Mitsuko K. Oishi University of British Columbia Electrical and Computer Engineering 2332 Main Mall Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z4 Canada [email protected]
H. F. Machiel Van der Loos University of British Columbia Department of Mechanical Engineering 6250 Applied Science Lane Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z4 Canada [email protected]
Ian M. Mitchell University of British Columbia Department of Computer Science 201-2366 Main Mall Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z4 Canada [email protected]
ISBN 978-1-4419-7030-5 e-ISBN 978-1-4419-7031-2 DOI 10.1007/978-1-4419-7031-2 Springer New York Dordrecht Heidelberg London Library of Congress Control Number: 2010935719 c Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2010 All rights reserved. This work may not be translated or copied in whole or in part without the written permission of the publisher (Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, 233 Spring Street, New York, NY 10013, USA), except for brief excerpts in connection with reviews or scholarly analysis. Use in connection with any form of information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed is forbidden. The use in this publication of trade names, trademarks, service marks, and similar terms, even if they are not identified as such, is not to be taken as an expression of opinion as to whether or not they are subject to proprietary rights. Printed on acid-free paper Springer is part of Springer Science+Business Media (www.springer.com)
Foreword
The not too distant future will feature assistive technology as an integral part of people’s lives. This future is ensured by the disquieting speed at which the need for that technology is growing. With the aging population trends in developed countries and the growing rates of developmental and other disorders and conditions in children, large sectors of the population are in need of one-on-one, dedicated, and individualized care. At the same time, our species’ ever-increasing lifespan means such care is needed for increasingly longer periods, beyond convalescence and into long-term rehabilitation and life-long support. Given population demographics, there simply will not be enough human labor available to provide this needed care. The resulting “care gap” presents a niche for human-centered technology. What does it take to create such technology? The challenges of safe, ethical, culturally-appropriate, engaging, accessible, and affordable assistive technology are many, and constitute the motivating forces of the growing interdisciplinary research trend reflected in this book. If we are to make progress toward addressing these challenges, we must create a culture that sustains an active interaction between the technology developers and the intended user communities, by bringing them much closer together than they ha
Data Loading...
