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Language of telecare - response |
| Wednesday, 03 February 2010 10:15 |
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Kevin, Thanks for the speedy and excellent response. I suspect we are talking at cross purposes to a great extent. I am most concerned about the here and now and the current use of words. I can see where you are coming from and I really take on board many of your points. I do, however, think that you have exemplified a fundamental difference in the way we think and our experiences in the field of telecare and assistive technology. You appear to be concerned with the future; a robotic future with Personal Electronic Assistants (PEAs) which might or might not come to pass but the issue I am trying to address is that we need a common parlance agreed now! I like the assertion that "Assistive Technology isn't as sexy a term as 'telecare', and doesn't sound as expensive as 'telehealth'" but I do not agree. Telecare and telehealth, to me, sound cheap and nasty; anything but sexy; whereas assistive technology says exactly what it is, technology designed specifically to assist people. No more… No less! I am in favour of thinking about the future and spend much of my time doing just this but when you work as a practitioner in the field it is very difficult to understand the basic concepts if everyone is talking about the same thing using different words. Bear in mind, most practitioners are very, very busy people. They have limited access to journals or have the time in their working day to read. They rely on experts to guide them. It is difficult for anyone to be guided though this if in a conversation about a fall detector the words telecare, telehealth, telemedicine and assistive technology are used interchangeably to mean the same thing. Hence, it is hardly surprising that many people listening will be baffled. Is it really accepted that most people agree on what assistive technology means? I suspect many people outside of academia would not have an easy job defining assistive technology. Certainly, I would suggest that few people would be able to compare and contrast the two. It is precisely because of this ambiguity in meanings that we need to all sit down and take responsibility for agreeing a definition. I think that the world of technology is baffling to most, bewildering to many and utterly incomprehensible to some. From a personal perspective, if I were talking to someone from a call centre about Telecare and then I phoned back and talked to someone else who talked about assistive technology I am sure I would be little confused. In fact I might feel less inclined to take up the potential of using this technology. Guy Dewsbury SMART Thinking: www.smartthinking.ukideas.com |
