Meaningful Engagement, Ethical Care, and Design Opportunities: An Ethnographic Study on Social Activities in Long-term Care

Social activities in long-term care homes help promote residents’ wellbeing, but their effectiveness depends on residents’ engagement. To identify design opportunities for promoting meaningful engagement, we conducted an ethnographic study on organised activities in an Australian aged care home. We observed staff fostered engagement by initiating conversations, weaving residents’ backgrounds into interactions, and adapting activities to residents’ varying abilities. However, challenges included new staff members’ unfamiliarity with residents, multi-tasking, and insufficient support to engage excluded residents. Using a care ethics lens that includes relational, situated and empathetic features of care, we show that meaningful engagement is shaped by the ethical care practices embedded in staff-resident interactions and highlight opportunities for technologies to mitigate barriers hindering staff from providing ethical care in existing activities. These opportunities include: collecting and recording residents’ interests, providing conversation prompts, enhancing activity inclusiveness, and reducing language and cultural barriers.