title: Elders using a community network: profile of a champion.
abstract: Computer networks serve as convenient, efficient, and enduring vehicles for delivering nursing services to patients at home. The ComputerLink, a nurse-supervised computer network, provides information, decision support, and communication services to caregivers of people with Alzheimer's Disease [1]. The data obtained in the original experiment included daily logs of each caregiver's use of ComputerLink (n=606 days), records of each caregiver's ComputerLink access behavior (47 subjects; 3875 accesses), and transcripts of the public communications (n=749) posted on the ComputerLink's open electronic bulletin board. In this paper, we present a case study of an early user's pattern of connections to ComputerLink as an atypical example of how elders make use of computer networks.
authors.affiliation: Frances Payne Bolton School of Nursing, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH, USA.
authors.forename: P F
authors.initials: PF
authors.lastname: Brennan
authors.forename: J L
authors.initials: JL
authors.lastname: Overholt
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Casper
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Calvitti
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D017028:Caregivers / Q000523:psychology*; D019058:Community Networks / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D003195:Computer Communication Networks / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007255:Information Services / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D009820:Ohio; D012944:Social Support