ActiveAgeing – The Helgetun branch
The Helgetun branch of the ActiveAgeing study explores how living in an innovative, community-based environment can affect the lives of older adults, using a qualitative approach.
Main content
Chronic complex conditions including age-related neurological diseases pose one of the greatest challenges facing science and society. Many will end their lives in institutions where they do not wish to be, and which society is finding increasingly difficult to finance. Demographic studies show that patient numbers will continue to grow, and older adults with complex conditions are increasingly constituting major challenges to healthcare provision in the 21st century. SEFAS is researching solutions, and one of our focus areas is smart living and care. Care today is very costly, and loneliness is a threat. Self-management and independence should exist alongside social activities and healthcare services. We wish to explore and use novel technology and smart buildings to innovate care and treatment for the elderly through sustainable business models and look at how we can implement new scientific knowledge into action more effectively and efficiently. One such pilot project is Helgetun, built and financed by the GC Rieber Foundations.
Helgetun is a community-based living environment for seniors located in a rural area of Bergen. The first residents moved in in 2019, and Helgetun promotes active ageing by facilitating mental, social, and physical participation. It consists of 31 rental apartments and several shared facilities. At Helgetun, the residents can participate in several group activities such as singing in a choir, joining in on social walks, playing bridge, dancing, volunteering in a kindergarten, working at a farm, gardening, and supporting their neighbours in the nearby Helgeseter senior centre. Among the facilities, there is a common room for social activities and a greenhouse for occasional cultural arrangements.
The aim of this study is to evaluate how this way of living can reduce loneliness and potentially delay the development of chronic complex conditions, allowing people to live longer independently at home. Based on observations, interviews, and sensor data from wearable devices, we are investigating how living at Helgetun affects the lives of the residents.
Team
Professor Bettina Husebø is leading the project, and molecular biologist Elise Førsund is employed as a doctoral fellow on this project, doing qualitative research to obtain rich and detailed data about the living environment, based on the residents’ experiences. Monica Patrascu as systems engineer with long experience with artificial intelligence and control systems is onboard to apply knowledge on discovery and digital signal processing, to detect patterns in the data that show us information about the lifestyle and activity levels of older adults. Rune Samdal joins the project as user representative, while Juan Carlos Torrado Vidal and Stein Erik Fæø provide experience with qualitative analyses as co-supervisors for the doctoral fellow.
Part of a two-sided study
The ActiveAgeing study consists of two branches – the Helgetun branch and the DIGI.PARK branch. DIGI.PARK is an observational study based on quantitative research, exploring the use of wearable sensor devices for symptom tracking in home-dwelling people with Parkinson’s disease. See separate description on DIGI.PARK here.
Status
Three scientific publications are emerging from ActiveAgeing’s Helgetun branch. The first article was published in Frontiers in Public Health in April 2024 titled “Active ageing in community-based living environments: an ethnographic study”. In this study, we identified three main factors that were important in facilitating active ageing in this living environment. These were “Maintaining self-identity”, “Experiencing growth and development” and “Feeling a sense of belonging”.
The next article is exploring a deeper understanding of how this community came about and how older adults experience this process, and we continued by looking at the participants’ relocation stories. For this purpose, we used a narrative approach based on unstructured interviews, with the main question, “Can you tell me about when you moved to Helgetun?” This knowledge is important to understanding how these communities form and evolve over time. The article from this work is currently (Dec. 2024) under review.
The last paper focuses on the living environment's impact on technology adoption for older adults. In 2021/2022, we collected sensor data from 15 residents at Helgetun at two different timepoints: one in spring and one in autumn. We used two commercial-grade devices (Fitbit Sense smartwatch and Oura ring) and a research-grade wristband (Empatica E4). Interviews were performed after both data collections, to investigate the participant’s experience with the use of digital devices. We are currently working on the analysis for this manuscript.
Societal impact
Knowledge from this project might inform policy makers on how we as society should plan the use of novel technology, social living constellations and person-centred solutions to support independent, safe living for older adults, and maintain or improve their quality of life as well as for their families.