Digitalization is one of the main drivers for change and innovation in our society. However, some groups of people are left out due to their lack of technical knowledge, digital competence and acceptance. In Germany, a majority of older adults belongs to these groups that do not make use of the added value of digital media in different areas of life. As technology developers and co-design researchers we would like to change this situation and, on the one hand, be in continuous dialogue with older adults around their technology needs and, on the other hand, develop technology that fits these needs.

In the digital health sector, co-creation processes are fundamentally important in order to create a human-centred service or product. The main goal of the accompanying research project CoCre-Hit is to implement co-creation in the developing process of new technologies and services right from the beginning. To support the other research projects of the call “Hybrid interaction systems to maintain health even in exceptional situations “, who are funded by the federal ministry of education and research and the VDI/VDE.

As part of a funding scheme “FH Struktur” of the Northrhine-Westphalian government a research program was set up at in 2014 our university to design digital media for people with dementia combining knowledge from design, media informatics, electrical engineering and social sciences.

Up to 90% of people with dementia (PwD) develop so-called challenging behaviors (emotional or physical), such as wandering, apathy, beating, crying or running away. Consequences are high burdens and impairments in quality of life for the PwD as well as for the caring relatives. Providing highly customized guidelines (interventions) could be a proper solution.