Older adults can use technology: why healthcare professionals must overcome ageism in digital health

Abstract

Older adults rapidly adopted technology for healthcare, known as digital health, during the COVID-19 pandemic. Older adults are increasingly using telehealth, smartphone apps, and other digital health technologies to reduce barriers to care, maintain patient-provider communication, and promote disease self-management. Yet, many healthcare professionals have maintained outdated beliefs rooted in societal ageism that digital health and older adults are incompatible. As a result, older adults have been disproportionally excluded from health services and clinical trials that use digital health relative to their younger counterparts. In this commentary, we urge all healthcare disciplines to challenge ageist beliefs and practices that have contributed to the “digital health divide” among older patients. We provide examples of evidence-based strategies and current scientific initiatives that can promote digital health inclusion in research, clinical practice, and training. By achieving digital health inclusion, we can increase access, provide preventative and comprehensive care, and decrease healthcare costs for older patients.

NeuroRehabilitation OnLine (NROL): Description of a multidisciplinary group telerehabilitation innovation for stroke and neurological conditions using the TIDieR checklist

“…NROL utilises an online delivery platform offering potential advantages to staff and patients in terms of saving time, energy and travel, and enabling delivery of more therapy to more people using an existing therapy workforce (14). Readily accessible technology assistance to learn how to use the required technology and help overcome barriers is important for optimising inclusivity and meeting the needs of this patient population (26)(27)(28).…”

Perspective: Present and Future of Virtual Reality for Neurological Disorders

“…This can benefit not only patients’ social/mental health (as most of us experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic [ 32 ]) but also their cognitive functions [ 33 ]. However, the digital divide, which exists now for the use of digital devices or online/internet services [ 34 , 35 ] and will probably become more critical for VR devices and the Metaverse, needs to be addressed so that the elderly and especially patients with neurological diseases do not fall behind. Such patients likely have brain mechanisms or functions that differ from those of the healthy population.…”

Ensuring Equitable Access to Patient Portals—Closing the “Techquity” Gap

“…Many older adults adopted telemedicine, smartphone apps, and the internet during the pandemic. 16 • Focus on eliminating barriers to the use of health care apps. A recent study by An et al 17 proposed an approach to evaluating and improving the design of apps, considering cultural norms, user experience, and concerns about privacy and confidentiality.…”

“…Health care organizations need to help patients become more familiar with technology, and organizations should also be wary of societal ageism, which may influence clinicians and some younger caregivers to assume that older adults cannot adopt digital health technologies. Many older adults adopted telemedicine, smartphone apps, and the internet during the pandemic …”