Health Promotion

1. DIGITAL TECHNOLOGY AND
AGING
CHANDRIKA JEEVANANTHAN
FARAH EDURA
MAISARAH GHAZALI

3. PRESENTATION OBJECTIVES
•Discuss the mobile revolution among the elderly
•Describe methods of technology advances for the elderly
•Explore selected smart device applications for use with
elderly
•Explore the reason for assisted technology among elderly

4. INTRODUCTION
• Aging of the world population and rapid development of technology are 2
emerging trend that will make technology used by older people is
important.
• There is an increasing number of technology usage especially the
computer and internet among older users but there is still age-based
digital gap (Czaja 2006)
• Technology can help older people maintain independence (Sa-Nga-
Ngam&Kurniawan 2006) and improve their quality of life by increasing
their ability to perform many tasks and access information(Czaja 2006).
• By not having access to an internet will make older people left behind and
incapable of enhancing the quality of life

5. ELDERLY AND MOBILE
REVOLUTION

6. • How do Adults 65 and over use technology?
• Internet (50% use internet)
53% go online just for email
33% use Facebook or social media (18% uses it daily)
86% of internet users access email (48% daily)
39% have broadband at home
• Gadgets
69% have a mobile phone
11% use a tablet
8% use e-readers
• Computers
33% own laptops http://www.marketingprofs.com/charts/2012/8217/online-seniors-integrating-technology-into-
theirliveshttp://www.aplaceformom.com/blog/2013-9-3-technology-seniors/

7. MEANWHILE IN ASIA
https://www.digitalnewsasia.com/mobile-telco/asias-senior-citizens-being-left-behind-by-mobile-revolution

13. SMART HOME CARE FOR
INDEPENDENT SENIOR LIVING
SmartPeep Smart Home Care

14. AGING IN THE TECH ERA

16. SMART DEVICE APPLICATIONS
FOR USE WITH ELDERLY

17. ManDown/Track my tribe: This handy app allows you to check-in on elderly relatives/friends at the tap of a
button. The user-friendly interface and helpful notifications should appeal to the less tech-savvy amongst us.
MindMe: This app is more relevant for dementia sufferers. It offers another way of staying in touch, while
also sending alerts to the caregiver/family if the person moves outside of a pre-defined area.
Fitbit is a waterproof watch that can track steps, calories burned, distance travelled, and sleep patterns.
Again, the data can be securely shared and monitored by friends and family.
Skype/Whatsapp: A very common and probably the easiest way to keep in touch as it offers free video
calling and widely used internationally

18. Available on iOS and Android, and is a data-driven app
that can be customised with images and videos (or
“moments”) to help elderly Malaysians with dementia
to reminisce about their favourite moments—while
helping caretakers to understand what “memory
triggers” matter the most to their loved ones.
Maxis says that reminiscence therapy has been found to
have a “strong therapeutic effect” on dementia
patients, and the app is a way to use data and
technology to aid with a process that has been mostly
manual for many caregivers prior to this. Basically, the
app will allow patients to view past memories in
photo/video form, while caregivers have access to
analytics and insights to help understand why certain
memory triggers are more important to patients
-The Star 16/1/2020-

19. • Red Panic Button
Cost: Free for iOS
Platform: iPhone & Android
This app serves as a medical alert on your phone. Instead of wearing one of those necklaces that you
press to get medical attention, you press a button on your phone. When you do this, it sends out a
message to a list of people that are pre-designated to let them know you need help. It will also send
out your current location.

22. Why does elderly need
Assisted Technology (AT)?

23. Disability
As aging process progress, older people will be having disability in using
technology. The disability can be divided into physical, cognitive and behavioral
changes.

24. Physical Changes
The most common problem for older people include:
1. Vision
2. Hearing
3. Psychomotor
4. Perceptual levels of declination.

25. • Vision
Elderly show a reduction:
in the width of the visual field, in light sensitivity, in color perception, in resistance to glare, in
acuity, in contrast sensitivity, in visual search and processing, and in pattern recognition (Zhao
2001)
Although, these problems are usually present for around 15–20% of the adult population, almost
all adults over 55 years of age need glasses (The Gerontological Society of America 2012)
Vision diminishing among older people resulting in visual disabilities especially when using
Internet since most Web pages are highly visual (Nielsen 1996).
Some older people are blind users due to eye health problem therefore they were unable to
difference between colors in Web(Kurniawan 2008) .

26. • Hearing
Older people also have incapability in certain level of hearing.
Hearing loss is the third most common chronic condition reported by the elderly, approximately
30–35% of the people over 65 having this problem, especially men (The Gerontological Society of
America 2012).
A study reported that hearing loss have significant correlation with cognitive dysfunction in
older people (Nielsen 1996).

27. • Psychomotor and perceptual levels of declination
For older people, the response time will increase as they need to do more complex
motor task or when the task need a large number of choices.
They face difficulty in tracking a target using mouse, cursor positioning problem,
inability to hold mouse still and very cautious in every mouse movement to prevent
them from making error .
(Kurniawan 2008)

28. Cognitive changes
• Attention and memory decline are two major cognitive changes. Older people
usually have less focus, less remember ability in a long period of time and
declined in visual information processing (Kurniawan 2008) .
• Since many important cognitive based activities such as reading, learning,
decision making, planning and creativity needs memory as a key performance
factor it does reflect older people capability with text comprehension (Meyer et
al. 1997).

29. Behavioral Changes
• According to study by Kurniawan, there are several behavior change as we aged;
1. it is the rejection of making responses that may be incorrect
2. longer responses time
3. very cautious
4. lack of confidence.
They have the thinking of afraid doing wrong thing while using computer
technology including Web.Older people will only use technology that they think
valuable and beneficial.
(Kurniawan 2008)