As part of the B-Phit Initiative, The Fulfilling activities project aim to investigate how different activities can promote engagement in individual levels and provide a sense of fulfillment and joy for older adults with Dementia. We believe that is vital to supply elderly population with activities that motivate them to individually engage and reach different levels of accomplishment. At the same time, is necessary to connect these users in more social spheres, promoting more complex interactions and building productive networks. We intend to develop this project as an experimental study on the use of participatory design techniques in order to deliver more relevant solution in Information technology to support this meaningful and fulfilling activities.
The Project follow a two phases plan:
On the Phase one, the team focus on understand the levels of engagement in activities by users and which factors motivates this engagement. Is necessary to have a clear idea of the reasons and ways that the user engage in individual and/or collaborative activities to design appropriate strategies to communicate and motivate them.
On Phase two, adopting participatory design techniques, prototype and test different interfaces (digital or not) to promote and reinforce individual engagement in fulfilling activities integrated with the community.
In both Phases, the Fulfilling activities project had closer interaction with Community Partners as Joy`s House and Eskenazi Health.