ABSTRACT
Everyone knows someone who is in contact with the elderly, it could be yourself, talking with your
grandparents. But think about this, are you calling them as much as they would like you to?
As we grow older, our lives start to become more and more difcult, this directly translate to the
time we have let for our loved ones. Especially the elderly notice that their place in society has
changed to one in which they are somewhat excluded.
I know from my own experience that my own grandmother got more isolated the older she became.
This was due to the fact that her own children had less time for her in addition to her diminishing
social circle.
Over the coming years the amount of elderly people is going to rise and therefore there will be more
people who will experience this kind of problems. Elderly who are facing these kinds of problems are
more tend to experience health issues.
In this paper I am trying to solve the problem for social isolation and loneliness amongst elderly
people, who live on their own in the Amsterdam area.
The main assumptions therefore are that more elderly people are becoming excluded from society.
Which makes them feel lonely and unappreciated, both physically and mentally.
I did multiple interviews based on a JAVELIN board. This JAVELIN board helped me validate and
identify the problemsaassumptions that elderly people faced. One of the most recognised problems
that came out of the interviews was the loneliness elderly people (65+) feel, partially due to them
being excluded from society. We set success criteria for the interviews to measure how much our
different assumptions were correct. Ater 5 times trial and error we found out that elderly people
wanted to be part of society and that made them feel unwanted.
Through this method we were able to fnd the right customer ft. I decided to go with the most
validated problem: ‘’Loneliness’’.
Ater that I started looking at the problem from different angles to come up with different ideas on
how to overcome the obstacles ahead. I wrote down 100 ideas and talked with my peers about their
feasibility and applicability. I used those 100 ideas and looked at what could be combined and what
was already out there. Ater that 20 ideas remained, some were technological and other were sociala
community based. I used a technique called “Scamper” to work them out and made combinations,
two technological solutions and one community-based solution.
I started validating these ideas through basic interviews which I held at areas were my target group
was present. I interviewed a total of 30 people to look at my ideas and how they would solve their
problems. While thinking about the feasibility of my ideas I also looked at the years to come. The
group of elderly people will grow over the next century and although most people whom are part of
the elderly generation now do not have any afnity with technology, the coming generations of
elderly people will have more afnity with computers and computer programs.
I looked at different stakeholder angles, volunteers, to get an beter idea of in what direction I
wanted to go.
The answer to my problem statements would be that the social isolation of the elderly in the
Netherlands could be changed by giving lonely elderly somebody to share their feelings and
experiences with. During the interviews I found out that some elderly try to stay as socially active as
possible and most elderly who are socially active engage in multiple activities with friends or family
regularly due to their own motivation. They also expressed that being alone would be one of the
worst scenarios for them. So I came up with 3 concepts to help them remainaget socially active.
The implications are that I must fnd a way to provide them with proper tools to help them overcome
these obstacles that negatively innuence their everyday lives. I am planning to do this through
the following concepts:
Everyone knows someone who is in contact with the elderly, it could be yourself, talking with your
grandparents. But think about this, are you calling them as much as they would like you to?
As we grow older, our lives start to become more and more difcult, this directly translate to the
time we have let for our loved ones. Especially the elderly notice that their place in society has
changed to one in which they are somewhat excluded.
I know from my own experience that my own grandmother got more isolated the older she became.
This was due to the fact that her own children had less time for her in addition to her diminishing
social circle.
Over the coming years the amount of elderly people is going to rise and therefore there will be more
people who will experience this kind of problems. Elderly who are facing these kinds of problems are
more tend to experience health issues.
In this paper I am trying to solve the problem for social isolation and loneliness amongst elderly
people, who live on their own in the Amsterdam area.
The main assumptions therefore are that more elderly people are becoming excluded from society.
Which makes them feel lonely and unappreciated, both physically and mentally.
I did multiple interviews based on a JAVELIN board. This JAVELIN board helped me validate and
identify the problemsaassumptions that elderly people faced. One of the most recognised problems
that came out of the interviews was the loneliness elderly people (65+) feel, partially due to them
being excluded from society. We set success criteria for the interviews to measure how much our
different assumptions were correct. Ater 5 times trial and error we found out that elderly people
wanted to be part of society and that made them feel unwanted.
Through this method we were able to fnd the right customer ft. I decided to go with the most
validated problem: ‘’Loneliness’’.
Ater that I started looking at the problem from different angles to come up with different ideas on
how to overcome the obstacles ahead. I wrote down 100 ideas and talked with my peers about their
feasibility and applicability. I used those 100 ideas and looked at what could be combined and what
was already out there. Ater that 20 ideas remained, some were technological and other were sociala
community based. I used a technique called “Scamper” to work them out and made combinations,
two technological solutions and one community-based solution.
I started validating these ideas through basic interviews which I held at areas were my target group
was present. I interviewed a total of 30 people to look at my ideas and how they would solve their
problems. While thinking about the feasibility of my ideas I also looked at the years to come. The
group of elderly people will grow over the next century and although most people whom are part of
the elderly generation now do not have any afnity with technology, the coming generations of
elderly people will have more afnity with computers and computer programs.
I looked at different stakeholder angles, volunteers, to get an beter idea of in what direction I
wanted to go.
The answer to my problem statements would be that the social isolation of the elderly in the
Netherlands could be changed by giving lonely elderly somebody to share their feelings and
experiences with. During the interviews I found out that some elderly try to stay as socially active as
possible and most elderly who are socially active engage in multiple activities with friends or family
regularly due to their own motivation. They also expressed that being alone would be one of the
worst scenarios for them. So I came up with 3 concepts to help them remainaget socially active.
The implications are that I must fnd a way to provide them with proper tools to help them overcome
these obstacles that negatively innuence their everyday lives. I am planning to do this through
the following concepts:
