Abdi, S., de Witte, L. orcid.org/0000-0002-3013-2640 and Hawley, M. orcid.org/0000-0002-2349-4491 (2020) Emerging technologies with potential care and support applications for older people : review of gray literature. JMIR Aging, 3 (2). e17286. ISSN 2561-7605
Abstract
Background: The number of older people with unmet care and support needs is increasing substantially due to the challenges facing the formal and informal care systems. Emerging technological developments have the potential to address some of the care and support challenges of older people. However, limited work has been done to identify emerging technological developments with the potential to meet the care and support needs of the aging population.
Objective: This review aimed to gain an overview of emerging technologies with potential care and support applications for older people, particularly for those living at home.
Methods: A scoping gray literature review was carried out by using the databases of 13 key organizations, hand searching reference lists of included documents, using funding data, and consulting technology experts. A narrative synthesis approach was used to analyze and summarize the findings of the literature review.
Results: A total of 39 documents were included in the final analysis. From the analysis, 8 emerging technologies were identified that could potentially be used to meet older people’s needs in various care and support domains. These emerging technologies were (1) assistive autonomous robots; (2) self-driving vehicles; (3) artificial intelligence–enabled health smart apps and wearables; (4) new drug release mechanisms; (5) portable diagnostics; (6) voice-activated devices; (7) virtual, augmented, and mixed reality; and (8) intelligent homes. These emerging technologies were at different levels of development, with some being trialed for care applications, whereas others being in the early phases of development. However, only a few documents mentioned including older people during the process of designing and developing these technologies.
Conclusions: This review has identified key emerging technologies with the potential to contribute to the support and care needs of older people. However, to increase the adoption of these technologies by older people, there is a need to involve them and other stakeholders, such as formal and informal carers, in the process of designing and developing these technologies.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2020 The Authors. Originally published in JMIR Aging (http://aging.jmir.org), 11.08.2020. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work, first published in JMIR Aging, is properly cited. The complete bibliographic information, a link to the original publication on http://aging.jmir.org, as well as this copyright and license information must be included. |
Keywords: | artificial intelligence; internet of things; mobile phone; robotics; emerging technologies; older people; care and support |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Sheffield |
Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health (Sheffield) > School of Health and Related Research (Sheffield) > ScHARR - Sheffield Centre for Health and Related Research |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Sheffield |
Date Deposited: | 21 Aug 2020 08:25 |
Last Modified: | 21 Aug 2020 10:12 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | JMIR Publications Inc. |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.2196/17286 |
Related URLs: | |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:164603 |