How to measure the impact of assistive technology solutions on the person's quality of life?

This paper reports the findings of a study that developed a standardized method to measure the outcome of assistive technology solutions. Here the term “assistive technology solution” or “AT solution” is used to describe any intervention involving assistive technology products and environmental adaptations to address a person’s individual problems related to disability in daily life, education, work, leisure and social life. A literature review was carried out in order to identify validated outcome measures, applicable to any kind of AT solutions. Eight instruments were identified as able to capture the impact of AT solutions in real-life context; three of them (KWAZO, IPPA and QUEST) were chosen to measure the outcome of the intervention for 34 subjects. KWAZO investigated the user's perception about the quality of the AT service delivery process. IPPA assessed the perceived effectiveness of the AT solution provided. QUEST measured the individual’s satisfaction with each AT equipment provided. The findings are described in this article. This standardized method for outcome measurement proved to be applicable in clinical practice.