Technology Enhanced Health and Social Care for Vulnerable People During the COVID-19 Outbreak

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has spread rapidly worldwide with critical consequences in health, as well as in social, economic, and particularly in psychological conditions of vulnerable people, especially older adults. Therefore, it is necessary the direct attention to their health care needs and related interventions. Information and Communication Technology (ICT) have direct impact on older adults’ health and quality of life leading to decreased depression and loneliness, along with empowerment of independent life. Many studies involve cognitive training programs/software based on new technological systems that provide to vulnerable people access to gamified, attractive, cognitive exercises for overall functionality everywhere and at any time. Twenty-four participants (mean age 69.3 years) were assigned to this study. The cognitive training component of LLM Care was used as an interactive software to enhance participants’ cognitive functions. The intervention lasted 12 weeks with the frequency of 2–4 times per week in sessions of at least 30 min. Participants used their personal devices (tablets/laptops) in their own residence, while technical and consulting guidance was provided by LLM Care certified trainers. They were informed about the purpose of the study, while consent forms along with psychological assessments were distributed every 2 weeks to periodically evaluate their psychosocial and mental health conditions. The assessments included the World Health Organization-Five Well-Being Index (WHO-5), the Short Anxiety Screening Test (SAST), the System Usability Scale (SUS) and the Impact Factor Event Scale (IES-R). According to the results, the participants with improved well-being tended to report decreased subjective distress caused by COVID-19, and their engagement with new technologies can potentially minimize the negative outcomes occurred by the current stressful situation, mitigating the effect of hyperarousal symptoms, while increasing their overall well-being. Well-being seems to remain relatively stable among older adults and decreases only when adversities occur, while the usability of the software was perceived as marginally acceptable by participants. The exploitation of the LLM Care contributes to the improvement of older adults’ well-being and alleviates the negative experience caused by stressful situations like COVID-19.

Technology-based solutions for behavior monitoring: lessons learned

“…To address these challenges, a set of technological tools were either on purpose developed or repurposed to enhance the educational and interventional arsenal regarding behavioral difficulties, developmental disorders, and special education. More specifically, this study explains how the WHAAM (Spachos et al, 2014), the AffectLecture application (Siouli et al, 2017(Siouli et al, , 2020, the ADHD360 (Pandria et al, 2022), and BrainHQ platforms (Romanopoulou et al, 2021) were designed and implemented or deployed as pilot intervention. Four case series studies (S1-S4) along with a pilot study (S5) were presented integrating different technological solutions for monitoring, thereby highlighting multiple aspects of behavioral monitoring and its benefits in special education and behavioral difficulties.…”

“…Tailored cognitive training is ensured by automatically adjusting each exercise to the level of competence of each participant. The adjustability of the cognitive training is provided by including hundred levels of difficulty (Romanopoulou et al, 2021). The proven benefits of BrainHQ are summarized as the rewiring of the brain as assessed through the improvement of brain activation, timing, and connectivity between different brain regions, the sharpening of cognitive function, and the improvement of daily living (Anagnostopoulou et al, 2021;BrainHQ, 2022).…”

“…Inherent obstacles of those methods include data loss, subjectivity bias, difficulty in synchronous monitoring at different settings, real-time recognition, and interpretation of behavior (Davila-Montero et al, 2021;Pandria et al, 2022). For addressing the limitations of existing approaches, we have designed and implemented a bundle of tools over the past few years, namely, the WHAAM application (Spachos et al, 2014), the ADHD360 (Pandria et al, 2022) platform, and the AffectLecture application (Siouli et al, 2017(Siouli et al, , 2020, in addition to exploiting the commercially available platform BrainHQ (Romanopoulou et al, 2017;Anagnostopoulou et al, 2021;Romanopoulou et al, 2021) setting different goals and targeting different populations. The WHAAM application enables the digital monitoring of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) behavior as well as the planning of an intervention and the statistical evaluation of its effectiveness (Spachos et al, 2014;Merlo et al, 2018) while the ADHD360 stands for an integrated platform that includes a serious game for early detection of ADHD characteristics and a mobile application for behavior monitoring.…”

Big Data Analytics for Early Detection and Prevention of Age-Related Diseases in Elderly Healthcare

“…In recent decades, the integration of healthcare and technology has initiated a paradigm shift characterised by evidence-based observations and inventive Big Data Analytics for Early Detection and Prevention of Age-Related Diseases in Elderly Healthcare strategies to tackle intricate medical issues [1]. In addition, within the realm of issues faced by society, the prompt identification and proactive mitigation of age-related ailments within the older demographic emerge as important endeavours that are crucial for safeguarding the overall welfare of our ageing populace [2]. According to [3], the incorporation of big data analytics in the field of geriatric healthcare offers a potential opportunity to transform the comprehension, diagnosis, and eventual mitigation of these ailments.…”

Effects of Engaging Older Adults in Technology-Based Dance Programs

“…Increased access to new technologies will help people live longer, healthier lives at all ages, increasing longevity and promoting healthy aging. For instance, technological advancements have been used to maintain people's physical activity levels, enable independent living, such as by detecting falls, smart home technology, early disease detection, and management, and maintain social connections by reducing social isolation [26][27][28]. Creating technologies that will not exclude older adults but will benefit them will provide benefits for aging and lifespan.…”