Digital solutions enhance day-to-day life in care services

Examples from the project demonstrate how digital tools can make daily life easier for both residents and care teams:

• Interactive Meal Ordering: A digital menu system featuring real photos of dishes has replaced paper forms in one senior home. This reduces administrative burdens for staff and enhances residents’ decision-making with visual cues.
• Key Management Solution: A digital key box now tracks the usage of apartment and car keys, eliminating the need for handwritten records and streamlining operations.
• Virtual Reality (VR) Experiences: At a senior center in Iserlohn, Germany, residents explored virtual environments such as the ancient city of Petra, San Francisco, and underwater worlds.

"Even residents who were skeptical at first didn't want to take the VR glasses off again," shared Leon Sachweh, a research assistant at IDiAL. The center has since decided to invest in its own VR equipment.

Professor Sabine Sachweh, spokesperson for the Institute for the Digital Transformation of Application and Living Domains (IDiAL), highlights the potential of VR: "With this technology, we can expand the residents' spaces of experience and add another dimension to life in the retirement home."

Despite the benefits, digitalization in care is often overlooked. "Too often, there isn't enough time to search for and implement IT solutions in day-to-day care. Digitalization falls by the wayside, even if it saves work in the end," notes Marcel Mitas, another member of the research team. Limited time for exploring and integrating new technologies is a common barrier.

To address these hurdles, the project team offers free workshops and participates in trade fairs. These efforts aim to dispel misconceptions about the complexity of digital projects. "It's a bit of work at the beginning, but it brings a lot," says Professor Sachweh.


REHACARE.com; Source: Fachhochschule Dortmund