Unpacking Forms of Relatedness around Older People and Telecare

Active and Assisted Living (AAL)/telecare technologies are increasingly promoted for the care of older people at home. However, while relatedness has been argued as a key concept of AAL/telecare, it is mostly interpreted as aspects of interpersonal connectedness and feeling of support. As people may relate to a variety of human and non-human actors in care networks, we explore different forms of relatedness between older people and other actors, including institutions and technology. To this end, we review related literature from Psychology and HCI. We then present a long-term AAL project where we conducted 20 qualitative interviews with 15 older people. We identified interwoven forms of relatedness that involved diverse social, organisational and technical actors, explaining, for example, people's motivations for engagement, the ways they imbue technology with organisational values, and the impact of technology usability. We suggest that expanding the concept of relatedness beyond the interpersonal can provide a more holistic and nuanced view, integrating interpersonal, social, organisational and technical concerns for designing effective sociotechnical ecosystems around older people and AAL/telecare.