A feasibility study of co-developing an AI-based television-enabled application (TEA) to address social isolation and alleviating loneliness in older people.

孤独可以影响任何人，尽管老年人最容易因生活事件（如退休和丧亲之痛）而遭受慢性孤独。研究表明，孤独会对老年人的健康产生严重后果，并可能导致更多地使用医疗保健服务（如全科医生服务和急症室）。独居老人作为住院病人入院的风险增加。有传统的交友服务；但到目前为止，还很少有研究能证明它是否能起到作用。其中一个想法是实施一种创新的友谊形式，使那些无法获得传统友谊服务的人，例如埃塞克斯难以到达的地区，以及康沃尔那些身体虚弱、缺乏社会联系而无法安全出院的人。该项目旨在共同设计一个基于人工智能的电视应用程序（TEA），该应用程序可以适应家庭电视机，这对于使老年人能够与交友服务联系非常有用。TEA将使埃塞克斯和康威尔的老年人能够增加社会联系的凝聚力，并通过促进参与来解决孤独问题。TEA的发展将以老年人为指导，通过参与式设计，最终用户也很容易记住它的名字——“TEA”。熟练使用技术，例如电视，可以接触到广泛的，甚至难以接触到的老年人口，以帮助他们克服技术焦虑，抵制变革，甚至地理边界，以创建共同兴趣的社区（如阅读小组）。我们的研究团队在与老年人共同设计产品方面拥有丰富的经验，并成功地参与了一个大型的欧洲年龄和技术项目。我们将与一组老年人、一些友好的志愿者、学术研究人员和小企业共同设计这个电视改编工具（TEA）。该应用程序也可以通过智能手机访问。我们设想埃塞克斯和康沃尔的老年人将从电视交友服务中受益；然而，真正的影响只有在我们分析了我们收集的数据之后才能知道。重要的是，该项目将首次系统地了解不同的交友服务模式对解决老年人孤独和孤立问题的价值。因此，研究结果将有助于政府、地方当局和其他希望通过交友解决老年人孤独和孤立问题的机构，并可在全国乃至全球推广。

Loneliness can affect anyone, although older people are most at risk from chronic loneliness due to life events (e.g., retirement and bereavement). Research shows that loneliness can have serious consequences for the health of older people and that it can lead to increased use of healthcare services (such as GP services and A&E). Older people who live alone face an increased risk of being admitted to hospital as an inpatient.There are traditional befriending services; but so far, there has been very little research to see if it can make a difference. One idea is to implement an innovative form of befriending to enable those who cannot access the traditional befriending services e.g., in hard to reach areas in Essex and those who cannot get safely discharged from hospital coupled with frailty and lack of social connections, in Cornwall.This project aims at co-designing an AI-based television-enabled application (TEA) that can adapt a home television set, that is universally useful for enabling older people to connect with befriending services. TEA will enable older people in Essex and Cornwell, to increase the cohesion of social connection and address loneliness by facilitating engagement. The development of TEA will be guided by older people through participatory design and can also be easily remembered by the end-users by its name- "TEA".The conversant use of technology, i.e., television can reach widespread, even hard-to-reach older population to befrienders, overcoming technology anxiety, resistance to change, and even geographical boundaries to create communities of shared interest (such a reading groups).Our research team, with extensive experience in co-designing products with older people, have successfully worked on a large European project on age and technology. We will be co-designing this television adaption tool (TEA), with a panel of older people, some befriending volunteers, academic researchers and small businesses. This application will be also accessible through smartphones. We envisage that older people in Essex and Cornwall will benefit from the TV-enabled befriending service; however, the real impact will only be known after we have analysed the data we collect.Significantly, the project will provide the first systematic insight into the value of the different models of befriending services for addressing loneliness and isolation in older people. The findings will therefore be useful for government, local authorities and others looking to address loneliness and isolation in older people through befriending and can be replicated nationwide as well as globally.