Towards technologically assisted mindfulness meditation practice in older adults: An analysis of difficulties faced and design suggestions for neurofeedback

Abstract

Learning to meditate as an older adult can be difficult given the decreased ability to inhibit distractions in the elderly, and the important role of dealing with distractions in several types of meditation practice. Designing technologically assisted meditation practices in general is an area that is only beginning to be explored, and this is especially true for these kinds of technologies for older adults. In order to better design support for meditation practices for such a population we performed a qualitative study of 9 meditators aged 55+ in order to understand their specific needs, followed by a pilot study of a device which we designed in order to address these needs. Our analysis of these interviews yielded three themes. First was that there was an initial difficulty and discouraging experience when performing focused attention exercises which comprise a significant part of a beginner’s meditation practice. Second was a difficulty understanding when you are “doing it right” and how to make sense of teachings. Third was an openness to making use of new technologies and ways of supporting their meditation practice as long as the new support does not interfere with what they considered the core parts of meditation to be. We then use these results to outline design considerations for a neurofeedback application to address these needs.