JMIR Aging

Home health monitoring shows promise in improving health outcomes; however, navigating the literature remains challenging given the breadth of evidence. There is a need to summarize the effectiveness of monitoring across health domains and identify gaps in the literature. In addition, ethical and user-centered frameworks are important to maximize the acceptability of health monitoring technologies.

The rapid diffusion of technology apps may support older adults’ independence and improve the quality of their lives. Models for predicting technology acceptance in older adults are sparse, based on broad questions related to general technology acceptance, and largely not grounded in theories of aging.

Most older adults want to age in place, in their homes and communities. However, this can be challenging for many, frequently owing to lack of supports that allow for aging in place. Naturally occurring retirement community supportive services programs (NORC-SSPs) offer an approach to help older adults age in place. Although qualitative studies have examined the experiences of NORC-SSP participants, little is known about how participation in NORC-SSP programming affects participants’ social networks.

Half of long-term care (LTC) residents are malnourished, leading to increased hospitalization, mortality, and morbidity, with low quality of life. Current tracking methods are subjective and time-consuming.

Electronic tracking devices, also known as locators, monitors, or surveillance devices, are increasingly being used to manage dementia-related wandering and, subsequently, raising various ethical questions. Despite the known importance technology design has on the ethics of technologies, little research has focused on the companies responsible for the design and development of electronic tracking devices. This paper is the first to perform a qualitative analysis of the ethically related content of the websites of companies that design and develop electronic tracking devices.

There are many mobile health (mHealth) apps for older adult patients, but research has found that broadly speaking, mHealth still fails to meet the specific needs of older adult users. Others have highlighted the need to embed users in the mHealth design process in a fulsome and meaningful way. Co-design has been widely used in the development of mHealth apps and involves stakeholders in each phase of the design and development process. The involvement of older adults in the co-design processes is variable. To date, co-design approaches have tended toward embedding the stakeholders in early phases (eg, predesign and generative) but not throughout.

The global population of older adults (aged >60 years) is expected to triple to 2 billion by 2050. Proportionate rises in older adults affected by loneliness and social isolation (or social connectedness) are expected. Rapid deployability and social changes have increased the availability of technological devices, creating new opportunities for older adults.

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, older adults worldwide have increasingly received health care virtually, and health care organizations and professional bodies have indicated that virtual care is “here to stay.” As older adults are the highest users of the health care system, virtual care implementation can have a significant impact on them and may pose a need for additional support.

Wheelchair part failures have doubled over the past decade. Preventative wheelchair maintenance reduces wheelchair failures and prevents user consequences. We are developing a smartphone app called WheelTrak, which alerts users when maintenance is required, to encourage maintenance practices and compliance.

Postfracture acute pain is often inadequately managed in older adults. Mobile health (mHealth) technologies can offer opportunities for self-management of pain; however, insufficient apps exist for acute pain management after a fracture, and none are designed for an older adult population.

A commonly used method for measuring frailty is the accumulation of deficits expressed as a frailty index (FI). FIs can be readily adapted to many databases, as the parameters to use are not prescribed but rather reflect a subset of extracted features (variables). Unfortunately, the structure of many databases does not permit the direct extraction of a suitable subset, requiring additional effort to determine and verify the value of features for each record and thus significantly increasing cost.

Heart failure is a leading cause of death among older adults. Digital health can increase access to and awareness of palliative care for patients with advanced heart failure and their caregivers. However, few palliative care digital interventions target heart failure or patients’ caregivers, family, and friends, termed here as the social convoy. To address this need, the Social Convoy Palliative Care (Convoy-Pal) mobile intervention was developed to deliver self-management tools and palliative care resources to older adults with advanced heart failure and their social convoys.