Mircea Dan Marzan

The global demographic shift toward an aging population necessitates a nuanced approach to developing and adopting assistive technologies tailored for older adults. This paper synthesizes key challenges, strategies, and recommendations identified in addressing the complex landscape of technology adoption and usage among aging populations. User-centric design and co-creation initiatives are vital for developing assistive technologies that meet the needs of older adults. These initiatives involve engaging older adults in activities like workshops, focus groups, and design sessions to gather feedback and refine technology solutions, ensuring they are accessible, intuitive, and effective. Challenges such as participant selection, cultural attitudes, and trust-building mechanisms are paramount in ensuring meaningful user involvement in technology development processes. Accurate assessment of older adults’ technological literacy is identified as critical for designing and implementing digital solutions. The unreliability of self-reported proficiency necessitates objective measures in assessments to counter potential biases and ensure accurate insights into user capabilities. The fragmented digital ecosystem and resulting digital divide among older adults pose significant barriers to technology adoption and usage. The role of caregivers in technology acceptance highlights the need for integrated models that encompass the caregiver perspective, reducing adoption barriers and fostering meaningful engagement with assistive technologies. Interdisciplinary collaboration and robust research standards are essential in advancing technology adoption and addressing societal inequalities. Prioritizing user-centric design, integrating caregivers into technology adoption models, and fostering collaborative efforts across disciplines can significantly improve technology acceptance and enhance the quality of life for older adults in an increasingly digital era.

The worldwide population is undergoing a fundamental change in its age structure, which challenges the health- and social-services system. The need to migrate towards a more person-centered and coordinated model of care that supports the optimization of abilities and capacities for older people has to be matched. In this sense, eHealth technologies can play a fundamental role. In this paper, through a questionnaire-based data collection using 30 primary (older people) and 32 secondary (informal caregivers) end-users, we share our vision on how to sustainably develop a product by optimizing the user experience and ensuring adoption. We hypothesized that a technology-based intervention can promote healthy ageing through informed and active user involvement at all stages of the care process. Both older adults and caregivers consider the use of a smartphone and smartwatch to be very important; in addition, the use of digital devices for healthcare can be helpful. Seniors care about self-monitoring health parameters through the use of wearable devices, regardless of their health status, and would like to be included in the process of making good health decisions, because they need to feel in control of their healthcare process. Digital solutions in health and care can support the well-being of older adults in many areas of their daily lives, both at home and in their communities, but only if such innovation is designed around the natural voice of the intended target.

The worldwide population is undergoing a fundamental change in its age structure, which challenges the health and social services system. The need to migrate towards a more person-centered and coordinated model of care that supports the optimization of abilities and capacities for older people has to be matched. In this sense, eHealth technologies can play a fundamental role. In this paper, through a questionnaire-based data collection on 30 primary (older people) and 32 secondary (informal caregivers) end-users, we share the sustainable way to develop a product optimizing the user experience and ensuring adoption. Both older adults and caregivers consider the use of smartphone and smartwatch to be very important, but also the use of digital devices for healthcare can be helpful. Seniors care about self-monitoring of health parameters using wearable devices, regardless of their health status, and would like to be included in the process of making good health decisions, because they need to feel in control of their healthcare process. Digital solutions in health and care can support the wellbeing of older adults in many areas of their daily lives at home and in their communities, but only if such innovation is designed around the natural voice of the intended target.