Page 160 - Petelin, Ana. 2021. Ed. Zdravje starostnikov / Health of the Elderly. Proceedings. Koper: University of Primorska Press.
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avje starostnikov | health of the elderly 158 improvement. Discussion and conclusions:  It is important to bridge
the gap between the elderly people and modern technologies, which is
achieved through more products designed based on emotional care and
construction, and by providing an appropriate training program for the
elderly population to use a smartphone. In the future, research should
focus on testing mobile health interventions in patients at risk for poor
adherence and on standardizing alerts and protocols for clinicians.

Keywords: elderly, technology, mobile application, ICT

Introduction
The COVID-19 pandemic has radically changed the existing infrastructure of
medical practice, as clinics and hospitals around the world have focused on
virtual resources to help care for patients. Various professional associations
emphasize the importance of the transition to telemedicine whenever possi-
ble (Lakkireddy et al., 2020). Technology has become critical to our wellbe-
ing. Technology also presents many opportunities for expanding the possibili-
ties of having a good life, and consequently is now somehow a necessity (Uysal
et al., 2016).

The interest and needs of older adults are mainly focused around employ-
ment, housing, health and social care (Özsungur, 2019). Specifically, the tech-
nology for older adults is addressed for content, that the elderly have the most
needs in. That includes programs and mobile applications for healthcare mon-
itoring needs (medication instruction), social needs, and also safety and priva-
cy needs (Klimova, Karesova, 2016).

The aim of this literature review is to present a comparison of mobile ap-
plications designed to help older adults in their basic life activities.

Methods
A quantitative descriptive research method with critical review of English sci-
entific and professional literature was performed using the following databas-
es DiKul, PubMed, Researchgate and SienceDirect. The keywords we used for
searching literature were: elderly, technology, mobile application and ICT. Lit-
erature inclusion criteria were articles published between 2016 and 2021, open
and free access and articles with clearly defined objectives and methods in
English language. We reviewed 51 articles and excluded 35 articles that didn’t
match our criteria. We included 16 articles. The literature search took place in
March 2021. Data was analysed using a content analysis method.

Results
The results of the review are presented in Table 1, where the first author and
year of publication, methods and main results are written.
   155   156   157   158   159   160   161   162   163   164   165