Virtual Scenarios for Stealth Assessment of the Elderly: Perceptions and Acceptance of Technology-Based Health and Wellness Interventions

As adults get older, the risks are increasing on their health, such as chronic diseases, functional decline and geriatric syndromes which threaten their well-being. Technology has many features to support aging wellness enabling older people maintaining healthy and sociable as they grow. However, the needs of the elderly of the population are not always the same. Stealth assessment, coming from the educational domain, can assess such needs. Virtual scenarios, interactive simulation technologies that recreate realistic scenarios combined with novel and effective interaction modalities such as dialogue integrations are contemporary means for such endeavors. Thus, coalescing all these axes and disciplines this work aims to explore the applicability of a dialogue based virtual scenario stealth assessment approach for evaluating the perceptions of elderly towards technology based health interventions. Utilizing a simple dialogue based authoring and deployment platform a simple scenario was devised. 21 elderly, aged 60-80 (6 males, 15 females) run the scenario and filled out a validator questionnaire for their perceptions towards technology. Correlation was discovered between the devised instrument and the elderlys desire to use technology in everyday life. These results provide the necessary foundations for refining future iteration of such stealth assessment instruments with Evidence Centered Design Principles.