With a growing share of older people in cities, “aging in place“ has turned into a central element in cities’ planning and health policy on ageing. Researchers agree that beyond the private home, the urban environment plays a crucial role in self-determined living. This focus has been further promoted since the WHO launched the Global Age-Friendly Cities project. While the provision of care infrastructures such as nearby medical centres and care-services to enhance age-friendly cities are widely acknowledged as urban planning approaches, there is a lack of knowledge on the importance of neighborhood networks and informal settings of encounter in late life as everyday dimensions of care with and among older people. This dimension and the implementation in city planning are especially important when taking Agenda 2030 into account. The chapters reflect on a broader concept of care as a complex process that visualizes the interrelations of public and private life and involves affective and active agencies of practical and material consequence. For this, we ask what are the hidden dimensions of care at the intersection of public and private life that go beyond the formalized care services and facilities for older people. The aim of the article is to promote a novel approach to seeing relationships among the built environment, nature, and humans to illustrate the heterogeneous, multiple everyday care practices of older people in order to advance our understanding of what age-friendly cities require. 

The chapter reflects on a broader concept of care as a complex process that connects the interrelations of public and private life and involves affective and active agencies of practical and material consequences. For this, we ask what the “hidden” dimensions of care with its informal settings at the intersection of public and private life that goes beyond the formalized urban facilities for older people are. The aim of the article is to promote a novel approach to seeing relationships among built environment, nature, and humans to illustrate the multiple everyday care practices of older people in order to draw a critical concept of age-friendly cities.

Background People with dementia who live in ordinary housing need to perform activities outside the home such as visiting friends, talking walks and doing grocery shopping. This article identifies and examines characteristics that may influence accessibility in the space of a grocery shop as perceived by people with dementia. Methods This is a qualitative study with a grounded theory approach. The data collection was done with two different methods. It started with photo documentation and continued with focus group interviews in combination with photo elicitation. Data from both photo documentation and focus groups were analysed according to a grounded theory approach. Results The categories "illogical arrangement", "overload of products, information and people", "visual illusions" and "intrusive auditory stimuli" showed characteristics in the grocery shop that influenced how accessible and usable the informants experienced a shop to be. Furthermore, personal capacities in relation to the specific characteristics of the grocery shop space had an influence on how accessible and usable the informants experienced the grocery shop to be. Capacities to find, stay focused and concentrated, meet stress, remember, interpret and discriminate sensory impressions through hearing and sight came to the fore as important. Conclusions Characteristics of both the shop and the person need to be taken into account when supporting people with dementia in grocery shopping.

PYCIPEDIA is a web-based collaborative tool for social workers that support parents with intellectual disabilities taking care of their small children. These particular social workers have been certified in providing parenting-skills training and support for parents with intellectual disabilities or with learning difficulties. As only a relatively small number of social workers are certified in providing the relevant support, there may be few colleagues to discuss with and learn from, even in larger municipalities with many social workers. To support social workers in providing the best possible support, the web-based collaborative tool PYCIPEDIA has been co-designed with social workers from two Swedish municipalities. The tool allows social workers to log in, and independent from what municipality they work in, create, browse, edit and share material (e.g. text, images and video) that can support the parents. They can discuss cases, rate online material, and access a forum.

There is no term for livable or livability in Swedish. However, in a study of the American/Anglo-Saxon livability concept in a Swedish (transportation) planning perspective, Moa Thunström finds it quite similar to the Swedish discourse and concept of social sustainability, although livability seems to have a more short-term and local perspective. Other commonalities with the Swedish urban planning and development discourse and practice concerns attractive cities, the need for cross-disciplinary planning processes and multilevel governance, holistic perspectives, etc. The main goals of the City of Stockholm’s Vision 2030-the citizens’ Stockholm, innovative and growing, and versatile and full of unique experiences-clearly connects to the concept of livability. The goal of Citizens’ Stockholm concerns an accessible, safe urban region with no physical or social barriers. The goal focusing on being innovative and growing stresses the need of being competitive on the global market. The last goal of Stockholm being versatile and full of unique experiences enhances Stockholm’s unique combination of top-class education and business opportunities and unspoiled nature at the doorstep that will continue to attract international visitors. The Walkable City is the popular name of the Stockholm Strategic City Plan of 2010. Stockholm’s natural and historical assets, the need for a denser city and better integration, and connection between districts are all important starting points for the city plan. The five urban development strategies of the city plan are intended to cater to a sustainable urban growth in Stockholm: continue to strengthen central Stockholm; focus on strategic nodes; connect city areas; and create a vibrant urban environment. Dialogue and collaboration are key process strategies to implement the goals of Vision 2030. In this chapter livability is discussed through an examination of urban development areas in Stockholm. A common problem in these developments is the lack of socioeconomic integration and affordable housing.

In this multiple case study we analyze solutions based on connected devices in the context of health, social care and wellbeing. Based on the consideration that a solution is a combination of services and products, we build on the notion that business models can be studied at a firm-level and also at a network-level. The network-level analysis is used to motivate the reasons why solutions emerging at the intersection of the healthcare and the ICT industries benefit from collaboration among different actors. We conclude that the firm- and the network-level development of business models provide alignment in the business network and are useful to establish the relation that technological component have with overall solutions. Our findings suggest that some component bring novelty in the final offer without affecting the ongoing operation, while other component aim at improving the internal working processes, with minimal effects on the final offer to end users. We discuss the benefits of a network-level perspective for each case.

In this paper we study how IoT technology can be introduced and used in different sectors; industrial IoT, smart energy, smart homes, smart cities, health care and social care, sports and well-being. The research has given increased insights into opportunities and obstacles for the introduction of IoT in different sectors. The main obstacles are considered to be i) specific IoT solutions often tend to be a small part of the overall solution, ii) lack of knowledge about which overall services the IoT solution may be part of, iii) Fragmentation and insufficient scalability, iv) Distrust and hesitation among actors to share data and platforms and finally, v) fear of changing the own business model. The analysis of our cases indicates that most of the challenges occur due to the fact that the solutions initially have been developed using a single firm business model. In order to survive or grow a networked business model is needed.

The aim of the study was to identify problematic situations in using zebra crossings. They were identified from photo documentations comprising film sequences and the perspectives of people with dementia. The aim was also to identify how they would understand, interpret and act in these problematic situations based on their previous experiences and linked to the film sequences. A qualitative grounded theory approach was used. Film sequences from five zebra crossings were analysed. The same film sequences were used as triggers in two focus group interviews with persons with dementia. Individual interviews with three informants were also performed. The core category, the hazard of meeting unfolding problematic traffic situations when only one layer at a time can be kept in focus, showed how a problematic situation as a whole consisted of different layers of problematic situations. The first category, adding layers of problematic traffic situations to each other, was characterized by the informants' creation of a problematic situation as a whole. The different layers were described in the subcategories of layout of streets and zebra crossings, weather conditions, vehicles and crowding of pedestrians. The second category, actions used to meet different layers of problematic traffic situations, was characterized by avoiding problematic situations, using traffic lights as reminders and security precautions, following the flow at the zebra crossing and being cautious pedestrians. In conclusion, as community-dwelling people with dementia commonly are pedestrians, it is important that health care professionals and caregivers take their experiences and management of problematic traffic situations into account when providing support.

In today's aging societies, elderly people often have difficulties to find people to communicate with. To address this loneliness of the elderly, it has been suggested to create more opportunities for children and elderly people to engage in various shared activities together. In this ongoing research, we investigate that social offline games can facilitate communication between the generations by creating a mutually enjoyable environment where elderly and young persons can interact with each other. A longitudinal approach is used to investigate whether intergenerational communication actually is enhanced by utilizing social offline games as the medium. Prior research has been conducted in related topics, such as the perceptions of the young and elderly participants towards each other in a game setting, as well as the impacts to communication behaviours among players of the same generation. We aim to build a model that connects game enjoyment, intergenerational perceptions and communication, and ultimately contribute to improving the well-being and relieving the loneliness experienced by many elderly people.

The aim was to analyze the home care workers’ movement patterns and postures of their backs, relating them to risks while helping an ambulatory care recipient to/from the toilet in a homelike environment. We found severe risks of unpredictable movements with exposed postures could explain many injuries. Because of high risk injuries, we suggest decreasing the time when the care recipient stands and the home care worker helps with clothing and personal hygiene. Another suggestion to decrease high risk is development of support in front of the recipient to prevent her/him falling forward.

Purpose: To develop assistive technology that would help an older person to arise from a kneeling position to a standing one. Methods: Developing a prototype, based on an inclusive design and then testing the prototype to verify the approach. The prototype was subsequently tested by a panel of 20 elderly users. These tests were observed and filmed. Participants' experiences of being lifted with the elevation seat were registered with the VIDAR ergonomic assessment system. Result: None of the 20 participants used a walker at that time. In response to a question of whether, assuming they might have to use a walker in the future, they thought that a walker with an elevating seat would be helpful, 18 said that it would. Two of the participants did not believe that they would ever have to use a walker. Conclusion: A simple assistive technology such as a walker equipped with an elevating seat would in many of these cases simplify matters and reduce the distress of people who fall often. In addition, such a device can allow people who fall often to live in their homes longer. For caregivers dealing frequently with people who fall, this assistive device can contribute to decreasing occupational injuries.