Glossary

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Care Staff(also: Care Worker, Direct Care Worker, Personal Care Aide)

Individuals who provide day-to-day personal care and support to residents in care facilities, including assistance with eating, bathing, dressing, toileting, and mobility. Care staff are distinct from medical professionals such as nurses and doctors; they typically receive basic…

Care Technology(also: Care robots, Robots for care, Assistive care technology)

Technology designed to support caregiving activities in institutional or home settings, including robotic systems, monitoring devices, and digital tools that assist care workers and care recipients. Care technology encompasses a broad range of applications from documentation…

Caregiver(also: Family Caregiver, Informal Caregiver, Carer)

A person who provides unpaid assistance with daily activities, emotional support, and care coordination for a family member, friend, or neighbor who has a disability, chronic illness, or age-related needs. Caregivers face significant physical, emotional, financial, and time…

Caregiver Burden(also: Carer Burden, Caregiver Stress)

Caregiver burden refers to the physical, emotional, social, and financial strain experienced by individuals who provide ongoing care to a family member or partner with a disability, chronic illness, or age-related condition such as dementia. Caregivers often experience…

Caregiver Burnout(also: carer burnout, caregiver exhaustion)

A state of physical, emotional, and mental exhaustion that occurs when a caregiver does not get the support or respite they need, often resulting from the sustained demands of caring for a person with a chronic or progressive condition such as Alzheimer's disease. Symptoms…

Co-morbidity(also: Comorbidity, Co-occurring Conditions, Multiple Disabilities)

The simultaneous presence of two or more medical conditions or disabilities in a single individual. In accessibility contexts, co-morbidity is a critical design consideration because many users, particularly older adults, experience multiple impairments simultaneously — for…

Cognitive Aging(also: Age-Related Cognitive Decline)

Cognitive aging refers to the normal, gradual changes in cognitive function that occur as people grow older. These changes typically include declines in processing speed, working memory capacity, selective attention, and fluid intelligence (the ability to reason about novel…

Cognitive Decline(also: Cognitive Deterioration, Cognitive Aging)

A gradual reduction in cognitive abilities such as memory, attention, language, reasoning, and executive function that may occur as part of normal aging or as a symptom of neurological conditions such as mild cognitive impairment (MCI) or dementia. Cognitive decline exists on a…

Compassion Fatigue(also: secondary traumatic stress, empathy fatigue)

A state of emotional and physical exhaustion that results from the prolonged exposure to others' suffering, particularly in caregiving contexts. Unlike burnout, which develops gradually from chronic workplace stress, compassion fatigue can emerge rapidly and is characterized by…

Critical Gerontology

An interdisciplinary approach to the study of aging that critiques the dominant biomedical framing of later life and foregrounds structural, political, and cultural influences on older people's experiences. Critical gerontology rejects the "discourse of decline" in which aging…

Crystallized Intelligence(also: Gc)

Crystallized intelligence refers to the accumulated knowledge, skills, vocabulary, and general information a person acquires through experience and education over their lifetime. Unlike fluid intelligence, which declines with age, crystallized intelligence tends to remain stable…

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