To explore the impact of digital technology on emotional expressions and social bonds between care workers and residents in dementia care, focusing on specific emotional dynamics.
Key Findings:
Emotional expressions identified include comfort-discomfort, joy-anger, and safety-vulnerability, directly linked to the quality of social bonds.
Digital technologies can facilitate or challenge social bonds between care workers and residents, impacting emotional engagement.
Emotions are meaningful signals embedded within social relationships, rather than mere symptoms of cognitive decline, suggesting a need for a biopsychosocial approach.
Interpretation:
Understanding emotional expressions in technology-mediated interactions can enhance dementia care quality by fostering better relationships between care workers and residents, leading to improved care outcomes.
Limitations:
Existing studies primarily focus on the biomedical perspective of emotions in dementia care, potentially overlooking relational dynamics.
Limited exploration of how technology shapes human interactions in emotional contexts, with a need for more diverse research methodologies.
Conclusion:
A deeper understanding of emotional dynamics in technology use can inform the design of more responsive and person-centered dementia care solutions, guiding future research directions.
