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Challenges and opportunities in the adoption of IoT for the elderly’s health and well-being: a systematic review
Book chapter

Challenges and opportunities in the adoption of IoT for the elderly’s health and well-being: a systematic review

Golam Sorwar and Md. Rakibul Hoque
Digital Methods and Tools to Support Healthy Ageing, pp.269-283
Healthcare technologies, Institution of Engineering and Technology, 1
23/11/2021
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1049/pbhe039e_ch14

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Abstract

Older people Applications in health Digital health Information systems Health status (incl. wellbeing)
With the advent of medical science and treatment, the aging population is increasing each year globally. Supporting regular care for the aging population at a large scale is a matter of great expense and labor-intensive. Without using new technologies, it might be a challenge for most countries, if not all, to support elderlies’ needs with limited resources. To address this challenge, technologies like wearable’s and smart homes, powered by the Internet of Things (IoT), are now being employed to offer innovative ways to enable the elderly population to an independent living and improve health and well-being. While IoT is meant to ease the life and care of elderlies, the adoption of IoT-based devices is reported very low. Therefore, new studies should be conducted periodically to gain updated knowledge in terms of use cases and efficiency. Consequently, the authors have conducted an integrative review of the existing literature reviews on the use of IoT for older people. Twenty-six review studies were reviewed as the sources of secondary data. Broadly, three themes were identified: (1) Use Cases, (2) Adoption Barriers, and (3) Future Research Directions. The review identified that the use cases of IoT solutions fall into different categories such as physiological monitoring, emergency detection, safety monitoring, social interaction, and cognitive assistance at various levels. On the other hand, the most frequently reported barriers were privacy, security, cost, perceived usefulness, and interoperability. The most common future research directions were suggested about the inclusion of users’ perspectives and use of artificial intelligence in future research. The authors conclude that a lack of formal clinical studies and contradictions in existing study findings are frequently reported. Hence, the authors suggest gathering more empirical evidence as a strong basis for a large-scale adoption of IoTs by the older population.

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