AETAS- Active aging, Empowerment, TecnologiA, Salute

Adherence to medication is considered as a worldwide problem among people with complex therapies. This is particularly true for elderly who live in their private homes who have the responsibility for their own medication management. Despite the large attention devoted to the problem by clinical research and design studies, medication management is by large a relevant issue.
AETAS (lat. Age) is a project that draws on the idea that medication management is an individual problem, focusing on “the social side” of this phenomena. The research aims at describing, analyzing, and support complex therapy management in elderly patients. We conceive medication management as the result of social processes that involves networks of heterogeneous actors (e.g relatives/caregivers, healthcare professionals, medical devices and technologies). To explore the multifaceted aspects of these processes the project involves researcher and practitioners from different disciplines as sociology of health and illness, organisation studies, science and technology studies, and clinical research.

The research design involves three steps:

1. Literature review: in-depth analysis of theoretical and methodological issues regarding care practices, networks of health services and the management of complex therapies.

2. Field research:

• Focus Groups with General Practitioners aimed at understanding their representations of complex therapies management among elderly people in the Province of Trento.

• In-depth interviews addressed to elderly people with multiple health problems and their caregivers. Patients are selected considering the extension of their care networks, the complexity of their therapies, and their level of adherence to medical prescriptions.

3. Development of recommendations. In agreement with the main research findings, the project develops:

• Suggestions for a technological and organizational support in the management of complex therapies.

• Risk assessment scales, used to stratify patients with different levels of social inclusion and therapeutic complexity;

• Specific training courses for caregivers and elderly patients.