Emerging ethical considerations from the perspectives of the elderly

Abstract

The introduction of assistive technology for elderly no longer able to live independently has brought along a set of new ethical issues that deserves attention. Previous studies on similar topics mostly focus on certain groups of elderly or specific ethical issues rather than addressing ethical issues that apply to the majority of elderly regardless of their background. This paper reports from four methods of data gathering where we let elderly using assistive technology voice their own ethical considerations without having to speak within an ethical framework or only limited to one or few ethical issues. The data is gathered through four different methods at a local care home in Oslo over a period of 15 months. Rooted in a thematic analysis we present four identified problem areas, and we summarize and discuss our findings with regards to how we believe these issues should be dealt with in the future.