Digital Commons Network^™

A Component-Based Approach For Developing Actions In Non-Humanoid Elderly Care Robots, Danyal Sarfraz, Ulugbek Vahobjon Ugli Ismatullaev, Kwanmyung Kim

IASDR Conference Series

Developing expressive motion for non-humanoid companion robots is a growing area of research in human–robot interaction. This study presents a hybrid design approach that integrates designer-led ideation with user-based empirical validation to develop physical actions for Lemmy, a two-wheeled companion robot for elderly users. The research followed a three-stage process: designer workshops produced an initial action catalogue; pairwise comparison testing with older adults identified preferred variants of four key motion components, speed, posture, path, and turn type, and validation studies compared complete actions composed from preferred, non-preferred, and random combinations. High-fidelity 3D animation was employed to enable rapid iteration, experimental …

Rethinking Public Space Design And Assemblage Affordances: A Perspective From China's One-Child Generation And Solitude, Xia Bi, Yijia Jiang, Caterina Villani, Kin Wai Michael Siu

IASDR Conference Series

This paper explores how urban public space design in China responds to the growing demand for solitude, with a particular focus on the unique social and cultural preferences of the one-child generation. Drawing on relational thinking and affordance theory, the study examines how public spaces intentionally designed to promote social interaction are appropriated for solitary use. Through case analyses of public spaces in Shanghai and Yantai, China, the paper reveals the emergence of improvised and serendipitous affordances that reflect changing user behaviours and cultural expectations. This paper highlights the need to move beyond intent-driven design toward a relational model that …

Co-Designing Tangible Embedded And Embodied Interaction For Co-Located Intergenerational Active Play, Khoa Tran, Alethea Blackler, Daniel Cook, Bernd Ploderer, Nicole Vickery

IASDR Conference Series

Co-located intergenerational active play enables meaningful interaction between generations while supporting young early childhood development and positive aging. Existing literature highlights the potential of tangible embedded and embodied interaction (TEI) in promoting active play and intergenerational interaction. Through a series of co-design workshops involving grandchild-grandparent dyads, fourteen ideas were generated and analysed using behavioural coding. Three themes were identified: ‘Ball games’, ‘Cubbyhouse’, and ‘Build and knock’. Ball games had the highest potential for equal participation, stimulating a range of Fundamental Movement Skill (FMS) and sustaining engagement. In contrast, cubbyhouse and build-and-knock activities often resulted in passive participation from grandparents. This …

"Weaving Home Over Time": Uncovering Layered Narratives Of Belonging Through Participatory Homemaking In Dementia Care, Natsumi Wada, Silvia Maria Gramegna, Alessandro Biamonti

IASDR Conference Series

What elements make you feel that this is “home”? This study investigates the multifaceted concept of “home” for people with dementia, extending beyond physical shelter to encompass sensory, emotional, and relational dimensions. Drawing on a qualitative, participatory co-design approach at GRACE Lab— a living lab embedded in a Milan dementia village—we engaged five residents with mild-to-moderate dementia, care staff, and design researchers in semi-structured interviews, observations, storytelling, and one-on-one workshops. A bespoke toolkit of icon cards and collage materials was used to elicit personal memories and co-construct individualized “home” narratives. Data coded in MaxQDA24 were analysed through a multimodal narrative …

A Study On Supporting Administrative Procedures Related To Death And Inheritance -Focusing On Entry Items In Ending Notes, Ryoichi Tamura, Shintaro Yamada

IASDR Conference Series

This study aims to reduce the burden of administrative procedures related to death and inheritance by focusing on entry items in ending notes and identifying related challenges in terms of understanding and information sharing. Thirty-four ending notes were analyzed, and their entry items were organized into 25 categories. Using Hayashi’s Quantification Theory Type III and cluster analysis, the notes were classified into three groups to clarify their characteristics. Questionnaire surveys of older and middle- aged adults revealed levels of awareness, willingness to communicate, and desire to understand each item, leading to the classification of entry items into six types with …

“For Haitian Culture, Being Older [Is] A Blessing”: Perceptions Of Aging, Elderhood, And Dementia In A Haitian Born Sample, Melissa K. Eustache

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This thesis investigates how first-generation Haitian immigrants in the United States understand and interpret dementia within the intersecting contexts of culture, migration, and biomedicine. While dementia is constructed as a pathological “loss of self” and a public health epidemic, in American biomedical and popular discourse, this study examines how Haitian-born individuals—socialized within a non-Western cultural and spiritual framework—make sense of cognitive decline and impairment in ways that diverge from Western biomedical narratives. Guided by theoretical orientations from medical anthropology, including Mark Nichter’s idioms of distress, Margaret Lock’s local biologies, and neuroanthropology, this research explores how cultural models of illness, aging, …

Communities Of Practice: Aging, Emergency Management, And Churches In Rural Clackamas County, Oregon, Lukas Robert Aberle

Dissertations and Theses

As the population of the United States ages, questions arise of how to best care for older adults in daily life and emergency situations. This research looks at the daily activities of churches to see how they affect everyday and emergency care practices. As a collaboration with Clackamas County government, I researched the relationship between churches and care through participant observation and interviews during the summer of 2024 to understand congregations’ support for older members, the role of church congregations in emergency management, and the implications of the decline in religious participation alongside aging in the United States. I found …

The Representation Of The Grandmother In Arab American Fiction: Alia Younis’S The Night Counter As A Case Study, Asmaa Belbachir, Eman Mukattash

Jordan Journal of Applied Science-Humanities Series

The increasing phenomenon of long-living grandparents and their novel roles and positions within both family and society in today’s world has inspired authors to produce literary works that address this subject. This article, in turn, aims to offer a clear representation of the grandmother’s character in Alia Younis’s The Night Counter (2009) by analyzing the various roles that the grandmother’s character plays in the lives of her grandchildren. As an Arab-American, Younis has an extensive background in the structure, norms, and values of the Arab Lebanese family, which are reflected in the novel. By choosing the grandmother as a central …

Engaging The Somali Diaspora: A Case Study Of One Agency’S Community Programming Approach, Farhia Abdi

The Journal of Social Encounters

This case study investigates how a local community agency engages with the Somali diaspora to design and implement culturally responsive services, such as the Settlement and Integration Program. It also explores the potential of fostering meaningful dialogue with community members to inform the development of culturally sensitive programming. The research question guiding this study was developed by findings from previous research, which highlighted the significance of community engagement, sustained dialogue, and the necessity for agencies to design clearly defined programs. These programs should prioritize active participation from community members in both the creation and implementation of tailored initiatives.

Design For Longevity: A Relational And Systemic Perspective, Sheng-Hung Lee

Nordes Conference Series

As Relational Design (RD) grows in popularity, Casual Loop Diagrams (CLD) can complement RD in systemic analysis by visualizing relationships between variables. This study integrates CLD with RD within the context of longevity planning, which considers dimensions of financial, social and physical wellness. While RD maps static relationships, CLDs model dynamic interactions and feedback loops, enhancing innovation through a holistic and adaptive approach. By bridging relational and systemic perspectives, this preliminary study advances discourse in service design, system thinking, and research methodologies, demonstrating how RD and CLD contribute to a more comprehensive understanding of longevity planning. Findings emphasize the importance …

We Are All Old: Decentralising Visions, Hayley Ho, Elsa Vaara

Nordes Conference Series

This paper seeks to understand how a mixed methodology of speculation, design practices, and artistic practices can help design researchers understand how people of different ages and backgrounds may distribute their visions about being old. Our overall motivation for the research is that countries in the world are struggling to shape good societies while the pace of population aging is accelerating faster than in the past. The world’s problems are often perceived as complex, leading some to lose faith in their ability to effect change. Every person is a piece of the larger puzzle, and we argue that when individuals …

Design Facilitation Skills: Discrepancies Between Research Focus And Industry Needs In Us Job Postings, Wenqi Zheng, Mauricio Mejia, Catalina Cortes

Nordes Conference Series

In design, designers often act as facilitators, helping cross-functional teams capture, evaluate, and integrate diverse ideas to create improved products. While the broader application of facilitation has been extensively explored, the specific demand for design facilitation in the industry remains understudied. This study bridges the gap by exploring the call for design facilitation in the U.S. job market. Through a content analysis of job postings and a novel approach for tracking skill trends over time, we identify key design facilitation-related skill employers seek, uncovering four patterns. We also discuss implications for design education, proposing curriculum changes to better prepare students …

An Exploration Of Elderly Representation & Stereotypes In Animation, Tyler Kidd

All Theses

In the world of animated features, supporting cast members are often reduced down to simple character traits in order to give the audience a simple idea of their personality or role in the story, or to support the creation of a work that is easier to understand for people of all ages. However, this can often result in the application of negative tropes that do not reflect kindly on those being depicted. The elderly are a group that often get caught in these stereotypes, being depicted as wrinkly, clumsy, overweight villains. While you can still find many positive portrayals in …

Intergenerational Design Challenges: Participants’ Perspectives On Moving From Ideas To Implementation, Tina M. K. Newsham, Matthew J. Peterson, Alicia M. Sellon, Logan Elkins, Abrielle Leblanc, Tess Ryan, Andrew Zeldin

Journal of Community Engagement and Higher Education

Many social innovation efforts are aimed at meeting social challenges presented by the aging of the population, yet older adults are often excluded from such efforts. The purpose of this case study was to examine an approach used in a midsized university in southeast North Carolina to create intergenerational opportunities for students, local community organizations, and older adult residents of the surrounding area to collaboratively develop suggestions for addressing challenges facing the older adult population.

The Role Of Faith-Based Health Interventions In Managing Mental Health Among Seventh-Day Adventist Youth, Oloo Stephen Nyanjwa Jr

Adventist Human-Subject Researchers Association

Participants reported moderate levels of anxiety, depression, and stress, with excessive worry and difficulty concentrating being prominent. Faith-based practices were frequently used and viewed as effective for mental well-being. While comfort in seeking church-based support was moderate, professional help-seeking was low. Most participants were recent members, reflecting shifting church demographics.

No Longer At War With My Words: Finding Healing Through Therapeutic Writing, Marlo Degaetano Kreitzinger

Theses and Dissertations

While living in Dallas, Texas, I had the incredible opportunity to work with women transitioning out of homelessness, addiction, prison, or other life traumas. During my four years of facilitating life skills and job readiness classes, I witnessed a desperate need for healing. Many of the women I served were stuck in the repetitive cycle of their unprocessed emotional trauma. These women were often victims of the unprecedented mental health crisis plaguing our world and had little to no access to mental health resources. My initial introduction into therapeutic writing helped me to accept my own mental health crisis and …

From Industrial Building To Affordable Senior Housing: An Idea Book Beyond Code, Weiyi Ma

Masters Theses

This thesis envisions a proposal to adaptively re-purpose Rhode Island’s extant industrial building stock into affordable housing tailored to the needs of its older and more vulnerable citizens. Architectural dignity, in terms of older citizens amidst this housing crisis, is the creation of living environments that honor their autonomy, comfort, and identity through design interventions that provide accessible, luminous, breathable, and socially enriching spaces, reaffirming their rightful place within the community. With humanistic care and logical rigor, it establishes a mathematical framework for assessment and execution, anchored in five criteria: light, air, space, accessibility, and livability, and presents itself in …

Music As Medicine: The Impact Of Music On Pain Reported After Surgery, Anastasia Pike, Gregory T. Chesnut

Journal of Global Awareness

The impact of music on subjective reporting of pain and anxiety has been increasingly described in medical literature. Multimodal methods of alleviating postoperative pain and anxiety, including the use of live or recorded music in perioperative settings, have been shown to improve patient-reported pain levels and, in some studies, to result in decreased opioid usage. The overprescription of opioids after surgery can contribute to long-term abuse or trafficking of medications, and the use of non-opioid medications, alternative methods of pain relief, and environmental/auditory stimuli offer new mechanisms to promote safe opioid prescribing while improving both pain control and patient wellbeing. …

Nigeria's Retirement Pension System And Elderly Poverty, Tonyesima Furro

Journal of African Policy Studies

This study examines the nature of Nigeria's contributory retirement pension system. It shows that the government took monthly payroll deductions from the incomes of retirees and deposited in said retirement funds. Prior to retirement, retirees would receive a severance package of a lump-sum payment of a few months to a few years' earnings. They were assured that their regularly scheduled monthly disbursement would be remitted to their designated bank accounts. But due to the cumbersome bureaucratic procedures, many pension claimants were unsuccessful in receiving their benefits before death. The study reveals that the nation's pension administration system is characterized by …

Controlling Women’S Sexuality: The Rise Of Emotional Abuse Among Indian Husbands, Puranjay K. Vedi

Journal of International Women's Studies

In ancient Hindu literature, marriage is regarded as the most sacred institution while adultery—known as vyabhichāra (व्यभिचार) in Hindi—is considered one of the gravest sins. Ancient practices still have impact in 21st-century India, where internal household sanctions meant to ensure Indian wives’ chastity continue to be seen as sacred. This study describes six different types of Husband’s Controlling Behavior (HCB) that are used to preserve wives’ chastity. HCB can either take the form of emotional violence (accusing/suspecting a wife of being unfaithful) or physical violence (hitting or beating a wife out of a suspicion she is being unfaithful). This study …

Feminist Rehabilitation Counseling: Vocational Rehabilitation For Women With Disabilities In Global Contexts, Abigail O. Akande

Journal of International Women's Studies

People with disabilities are the most unemployed and underemployed minority group in the world, and women with disabilities (WWD) are further marginalized. Vocational rehabilitation (VR) is a human services discipline designed to support people with disabilities in obtaining and maintaining their employment goals. Competitive employment is a potential means for WWD to be empowered and to flourish by fostering a sense of economic security, encouraging community engagement, facilitating optimum levels of independence, contributing to the local economy, subverting the implications of poverty (e.g., limited healthcare, rehabilitation, and education access), and developing identities rooted in pride that often accompany the status …

Exploring Spatial Arrangements And Smart Technology To Manage Cognitive Load In Kitchens For Aging In Place, Monique Chabot

Full-Text Theses & Dissertations

Older adults undergo natural physiological changes in various physical and cognitive functions, including balance, strength, memory, attention, and executive functioning. Memory, attention, and executive functioning integrate to form functional cognition, a skill that allows people to safely and efficiently complete daily tasks. Functional cognition is integral to the ability to age in place and is sensitive to demands in the environment. While a decline in some cognitive functions is expected with age, it is not typically observable except in the presence of pathological conditions or situations of cognitive overload from complex tasks or high environmental demands.

Older adults have identified …

Household Wealth And Mental Health In Older Adults Across Racial Groups: Moderating Role Of Social Support, Sunkanmi Folorunsho

Department of Sociology: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This thesis examines the relationship between household wealth and mental health outcomes among older adults, with particular attention to racial and ethnic differences and the potential moderating role of social support. Although financial resources are widely recognized as important determinants of psychological well-being, less is known about how social support interacts with economic conditions to shape mental health in later life. The study also addresses how these patterns may vary among different racial and ethnic groups, given persistent inequalities in wealth and disparities in access to social resources.

Drawing on data from the 2020 wave of the Health and Retirement …

Creative Ties: Using Design To Build Connections And Reduce Loneliness, Madelyn Arnold

Honors Projects

While loneliness is a universal infliction, there are specific demographics that are disproportionately affected by this experience. The older adult population is at a much higher risk of experiencing feelings of loneliness and the negative health risks that come from extended periods of isolation. The severity of loneliness within the older adult population cannot be overstated. Art therapy techniques have been studied as a potential tool to reduce these feelings and side effects in this vulnerable population.

Moved by the profound effects and high rates of loneliness for older adults, this project seeks to create a tool to alleviate these …

Church Doors And Hospital Doors: The Interrelationship, Azubuike Chukwubumnobi Okeke, Samuel Obiajulu Ike

Great Commission Research Journal

This study examines the place of medical evangelism as a means of church expansion in modern Nigeria. It is a retrospective cross-sectional investigative study involving data collection from the Good Shepherd Specialist Hospital’s anonymized patient records. The Good Shepherd Specialist Hospital is in Enugu State in southeastern Nigeria. Over 100,000 patients sought medical care in the hospital during a period of 19 years. Seventy-four percent had spiritual care provided by a person of the same faith. Most of the respondents came from within the Enugu metropolitan area. Using the church planting ministry of the Chapel of His Resurrection within the …

Social Solidarity & Philanthropy In African Contexts, Dennis Kilama, Patricia Snell Herzog, David P. King

The Journal of Social Encounters

Within Western contexts, philanthropy has been conceptualized as formal and organizational, with less emphasis on its informal contours. This paper identifies social solidarity as crucial to understanding philanthropy in African contexts. The first section explores concepts of philanthropy, such as reciprocity and cooperation. Second, recognizing solidarity as a key aspect of philanthropy, we review how social solidarity has been theorized and studied. Third, we illustrate how philanthropy in Kenya and Uganda is embedded within specific contexts. Philanthropy can be found in horizontal (formal), vertical (informal), and hybrid forms. Alongside formal philanthropy, efforts to benefit others in Africa often emerge informally …

Working Paper: The Role Of Nafeer And Social Networks In Sudan’S Humanitarian Response And The Challenges For International Aid, Mazin Sharfi

The Journal of Social Encounters

This paper explores the integral role of Nafeer, a traditional Sudanese communal practice, and social networks in addressing humanitarian crises, focusing on the ongoing 2023 conflict. Nafeer, rooted in rural agricultural settings, has evolved to mobilise urban communities for emergency responses, while social networks extend social support beyond family ties, providing a complementary layer of resource-sharing. Both systems, decentralised and grassroots in nature, contrast sharply with formal international aid structures. The research highlights how Nafeer and social networks mobilise resources through traditional means, such as mobilising social capital and economic resources including remittances, and modern mechanisms, like crowdfunding. It underscores …

Whole Broken People Wholeness Of Life At All Ages, Brenda K. Lewis

Doctor of Ministry

NPO Statement

Experiences of lost independence or control overwhelm or block the spiritual coping mechanisms of some Independent Living residents at Givens Estates.

Key Research Insights

Deep cultural bias, denial, and a lack of realistic role models form blocks between us and healthy coping with the realities of aging. When we lose independence and control, we often lose our expected storyline, our sense of our identity, and our understanding of the role of our spiritual traditions. The Christian tradition offers rich resources for redefining our story and ourselves in ways that deepen our faith and our connection with the people …

Care Providers Caring For Military Members Struggling With Grief, Clara Altagracia García

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

This research aims to address the lack of grief support services for service members (SMs) and veterans, which affects them and the wider community. The mission is to uncover the needs of SMs and veterans and devise effective strategies to support them. The literature review will provide the foundation for the need for research and create a reasonable solution for a healthier grieving process for SMs. This research aims to determine how complicated grief goes undetected and how counseling can help SMs and veterans. The thesis project will impact the grief counseling process of others in this field and bring …

Small Town Voices And Stories: Rural Older Populations And Health Narratives, Wyatt K. Zumbahlen

Masters Theses

Stories play a vital role in our humanity; they help us understand the world around us. As we age, our experiences, along with those of the people around us, shape our perceptions of health and influence our healthcare choices. For older adults, narratives become an essential resource in making healthcare decisions. In rural communities like Coles County, Illinois, these stories are especially important for older adults who are navigating the limited care and services available in the area. This reliance on narratives impacts their willingness to seek care, highlighting the need to recognize the power of stories in empowering older …