Executive Summary
In the current society, the number of older people is gradually increasing and these seniors are in most cases living alone. As a consequence, they suffer intense feelings of loneliness that cause common medical problems observed among the older population. Previous studies have shown that older people are afraid of being alone and this causes anxiety and loneliness.
Because of their deteriorating health and mental and physical abilities, they are at times unable to perform the normal daily routines essential for their lives. These feelings of loneliness or the isolation of the older citizens can cause serious challenges in their lives and therefore the health of such people deteriorates very fast and can die sooner than they could have.
Over the past decade, there have been great advances in the field of information technology and these changes have greatly revolutionized the way people interact, work and carry out their daily duties.
The internet communication and personal gadgets have transformed services to people and that people are now enjoying easier and faster access to things via digital means. However, in the ages over 65, people seem not to consider new technology as useful for survival and performing important tasks.
Introduction
Topic Area
A very large number of older people report that they do not use even the internet. This bring a great challenge to the fact that it is this basic digital technology that can help solve the problems of the older people’s isolation like developing and maintain social networks and participating in the communities and conducting their private lives actively (Findlay 2003, p. 650).
Technology use among the older people has a great potential of bringing great social benefit to the older people like participation (Pollack 2005, p. 10).
This proposal is set to demonstrate that technology has the potential and the ability of enabling older people in their bid of renewing and developing social contact and actively involving their lives. Having considered all this, the use of IT technology can offer older people a chance to engage in meaningful work and other task essential in life (Rogers & Fisk, 2006, p. 39).
Interaction with family and friends will be renewed and these older people can discover and build up skills as well as gather experience.
Research Questions
The study will be based on the hypothesis that the information technology advances and innovativeness can offer older people with a means of actively interacting with other people and participating actively in other personal activities (Independent Age 2010, p. 10).
This technology will enable prevention of the feelings of isolation among older people so that they do not suffer loneliness and social seclusion (Victor et al 2005, p. 358).
The impact of isolation and loneliness is caused by a number of causes including retirement, deteriorating physical and mental health and bereavement (Independent Age 2010, p. 10). The core questions that have inspired this study include;
- How can IT technology be used in the prevention and alleviation of the feeling of social seclusion and loneliness among senior citizens over 65 years?
- What potential does the IT have to enable older people to develop and maintain social contact and active involvement in the society, both which are the main elements of wellbeing and happiness? (Zijlstra & Aminian 2008, p. 4)
Governments across the world especially the developed nations are making it a priority to invest in technology that would improve the access to new technology by older people as well as those living with disabilities (Pollack 2005, p. 10). The major question emerging from this is ‘to what end is digital participation going to take place? More specifically, this bring the third question
- Is there any sufficient rationally given to the use of IT to address challenges of older people? (Independent Age 2010, p. 10)
- Does this strategy really provide a meaningful social interaction and involvement?
Objectives of Study
The research will seek to fulfil several objectives which at the end of it all will enable older people to be active in the society and alleviate social isolation feelings (Findlay 2003, p. 650). Nonetheless, the research will also seek to address the use of IT as a threat to health and general welfare of older people.
Older usually present several weaknesses like hearing loss, impaired vision, memory lapse, physical weakness, and poor health; From this, the study draws the main objective which is to do away with the view that older people are weak, depended and incapable of managing their lives (Independent Age 2010, p. 10).
Other goal will include ensuring that people live longer, healthy and satisfying lives; and that older generation also participant in the society actively. Lack of social contact and involvement is a dimension of seclusion and the study will seek to alleviate this exclusion.
Moreover, exclusion and loneliness contributes to high prevalence of mental problems like depression. This study will also seek to alleviate the health problems facing older people like stress and depression (Independent Age 2010, p. 17).
Literature Review
Innovative IT Application for Older Users
IT application can be used to enable older people to escape such social isolation (Findlay 2003, p. 652). This is a very reasonable hypothesis and a timely research especially that the current society relies on technology for fast and cheap means of interaction with friends, family and even work (Charness et al 2007, p. 249).
Many people usually develop great social networks through technology advances and this supplements periodic direct contact with people of shared interests (Victor et al 2005, p. 359). This proposal purports that technology provides the needed solutions to older people.
It will hence seek to explore the barriers to the application of IT and later the study will be used to devise recommendations on the best way of applying this theme in future.
This paper proposes the following ways of helping the older people to continue living independently and stay active in the society.
Social Communication technologies: the use of IT can offer simple use of telephone and video communication like broadband technologies. This will enable older people to keep in touch with family and friends hence eliminating the feeling of seclusion. Note that many people over 65 year across the world live alone (Victor et al 2005, p. 359).
Security and Safety Gadgets: there has been great step up is security technologies and Smart house technology can help in ensuring that the house is secure (close doors and windows) at night or when a person leaves the house (Cheek et al 2005, p. 331). This technology and devices can also other things around the house like gas and water leaks and turning off unwanted lights. Plus, automatic alarms can go off to remind or call for help (Rogers & Fisk 2006, p. 39).
Shopping, travelling and Social services access: the internet technology currently allows online purchase of items and many businesses also offer home delivery. This way, older people can access public services through online technology and shop for whatever things they need with relying on others
Reminders: Memory lapse is a serious challenge for the older people and the problems gets worse with age. By using programmed digital reminders, the elderly van have a schedule for the day and also set alarms for important activities like taking medication or doing a household task (Zijlstra & Aminian 2008, p. 4)
Mobility and User Friendly interface: mobile solution devices can be used together with GPS and other sensors for crucial signs to help older people to move around and be able to access alarm button in case of emergency or deteriorating vital signs (Lezzoni et al 2001, p. 238).
Besides, many types of equipment at home and around the compound can be designed to meet the needs of older people like impaired eyesight, mobility and hearing. For the purposes of this research the initials ‘IT’ will be used to refer to these five technologies of overcoming old age challenges.
Old age brings a lot of complications especially physical and mental capability challenges (McCreadie & Tinker 2005, p. 91). Besides, the issue of social isolation is a serious concern being caused by several factors including death of spouse, poor sight and hearing sense, chronic medical problems and scattering of family members (McCreadie & Tinker 2005, p. 91).
Despite the cause, the consequences can have a great toll on the life of older people who form a big percentage of the normal population.
Ambient Assisted Living
The has been development of a system that is known as the “Ambient Assisted Living” and it refers to the phenomenon where information technology is used to carry out personal activities on daily duties and work making the individual stay active and socially productive (McCreadie & Tinker 2005, p. 93; Charness et al 2007, p. 249).
Essentially, the use of ICT to ensure independent living among older people can be as simple as the use of an alarm or digital reminders to taking medicine and so on (Rogers & Fisk 2006, p. 39). However, technology use can be as sophisticated as to employ a system that can project the time when a person has highest risk of falling (Lezzoni et al 2001, p. 238).
Such is however, applicable when there has been a great loss of individual independence. Despite technology being very simple or complex, the principle of this ambient technology has been that technology has to serve the user.
Methodology
Method and Design
The study will be set to investigate some of the innovative means of applying IT to provide the elderly with ways of dealing with their challenges that come with old age. The study will be descriptive and will employ both the qualitative and quantitative research methods to investigate some ground-breaking technologies of engaging older people in community and personal lives.
The investigator will conduct some literature search to find out literature that addresses technology that has been used for these purposes. This is the secondary search. Besides the investigator will conduct primary study on real participants who use IT for managing their lives.
Data Collection
The researcher will interview participants regarding their quality of life as they utilize IT for their personal daily activities and keeping contact with friends and families. The outcomes will be analyzed against the control group which is a group of older people who do not use technology for their daily activities.
Data Analysis
For the systematic literature review, the investigator will use recursive abstractions to analyze the data collected so as to come up with the relevant summaries for the proposal. The qualitative data is hence interpreted without making codes and picking relevant topics for study.
The questionnaires will be checked for completeness, consistency and accuracy before leaving the location of study. The data will be entered into a computer and sorted. The researcher will be analyze the data by use of the computer software including Microsoft excel and SPSS. These tools are very useful for analyzing descriptive statistics.
Significance of Study
As a society today, there has been increased survival of older people due to better healthcare systems and lifestyle. As such, the developed nations have greater numbers of older citizens.
However, this elderly population has been facing challenges of dependence, loneliness, and social isolation as most live alone (Findlay, 2003, p. 653). As the IT develops further, the society today depends on technology for a lot of assistances like cure of diseases, dealing with crime and achieving vitality among elderly people.
The study will contribute deeper to the use of IT to address the social challenges that the elderly face. It is purported that IT will have a positive impact on the functioning of older people in their homes thus removing the notion that they are always dependent (Sixsmith et al 2009, p. 234). This technology will also help them to stay in touch or keep contact with friends and family.
The older people can as well participate in community activities by working. This project will seek to make technology use a normal thing, reduce stigma on older people and offer social support that have previously been overlooked (Victor et al 2005, p. 363). When proper use of IT is made possible at home, this would be a much cheaper and a secure way of caring for the old than using institutional care.
When the elderly are independent and actively participating in the community, it means family member will have more time to attend other economically beneficial activities hence meaning that the society more productive (Charness et al 2007, p. 249).
This also means that there will be less medical costs as the old will be more health and in case they are on medication, they are like to adhere to it full by help of IT (reminders etc). Therefore health cost will drastically reduce.
Conclusion
With many people in developed nations like the UK and US living longer, the number of people above age 65 has skyrocketed. A considerable number are even aged 85 and above. Ensuring that these longer lives are healthier and still satisfying is the grand challenge the world has to face. IT experts are working hard to ensure that the aging population of today and the future can protract their vitality.
This proposal study suggests ways of helping the older people to live independently as much as possible and enable them stay involved in the community and at work. The study also offers ways of helping care givers to provide better care and also this will seek to explore the diverse needs of older people.
For the older people, small issues like poor eyesight and short-term memory lapses can rapidly exacerbate to be big problems like loss of home and total dependence on others.
A stay at nursing home or adapting a whole system of assisted living is very expensive but this paper seeks to offer simple, cheap, innovative and sustainable IT technologies to help older people remain independent an making sure their homes assist and not hamper them.
The use of IT will transform homes into ‘supplement minds’ for the seniors and it would bridge the gap that exists between the cognitive needs and the capabilities of the old. In essence an aware home greatly builds independence.
Reference List
Charness, N., Czaja, S., and Sharit, J., 2007, Age and Technology For Work. In K.S. Schultz, And G.A. Adams (Eds.), Aging And Work In the 21st Century, Mahwah, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Publishers
Cheek, P. Nikpour, L , & Nowlin, H., 2005. Aging Well With Smart Technology. Nursing Administration Quarterly, Vol. 29, Issue 4, pp. 329-338
Findlay, R. A., 2003. Interventions To Reduce Social Isolation Amongst Older People: Where Is The Evidence? Ageing & Society, Vol. 23, No. 5, pp. 647–658.
Lezzoni, L., McCarthy, E., Davis, R., & Siebens. H., 2001. Mobility Difficulties Are Not Only A Problem Of Old Age,’ Journal of General Internal Medicine, Vol. 16, No. 4, pp. 235-243.
Independent Age, 2010. Older People, Technology And Community – The Potential Of Technology To Help Older People Renew Or Develop Social Contacts And To Actively Engage In Their Communities. Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation
McCreadie, C., & Tinker, A., 2005. The Acceptability of Assistive Technology to Older People. Ageing And Society, Vol. 25, Issue 1, pp. 91-110
Pollack, M., 2005. Intelligent Technology for an Aging Population: The Use of AI to Assist Elders with Cognitive Impairment. AI Magazine, Vol. 26, No. 2, pp. 9-24
Rogers, W.A., & Fisk, A.D., 2006. Cognitive Support For Elders Through Technology, Generations. Journal Of The American Society on Aging, Vol. 30, No. 2, pp. 38-43
Sixsmith, A. et al., 2009. SOPRANO – An Ambient Assisted Living System For Supporting Older People At Home. Ambient Assistive Health And Wellness Management In The Heart Of The City, Vol. 5597, pp 233-236
Victor, C.R., Scambler, S. J., Bowling, A., & Bond, J., 2005. The Prevalence Of, And Risk Factors For, Loneliness in Later Life: A survey of older people in Great Britain. Ageing and Society, Vol. 25, No. 3, pp. 357–375
Zijlstra, V., & Aminian, K., 2008. Mobility Assessment in Older People: New Possibilities and Challenges. European Journal of Aging. Vol. 4, No. 1, pp. 3-12.