Article

Informal caregivers are a critical yet frequently unacknowledged part of the
healthcare system. It is commonly presumed that providing assistive technology
will decrease the burden of their care provision; however, no review has
evaluated the evidence behind this assumption. Therefore,
a systematic review was
undertaken to evaluate evidence of the impact of assistive technology use by care
recipients on their informal caregivers. Data sources included EMBASE, MEDLINE,
Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature, Web of Science,
PsychINFO, PubMed, and active researchers in this area. Twenty-two studies met
the specified inclusion criteria. Collectively, the findings suggest that
assistive technology use helps caregivers by diminishing some of the physical and
emotional effort entailed in supporting individuals with disability. However,
confidence in this causal connection is limited because of the study designs that
were used. This undermines the understanding of the impacts of assistive
technology use on the users' informal caregivers.

Langue : ANGLAIS