Department of Geriatric Care, Orthogeriatrics and Rehabilitation, Frailty Area, E.O. Galliera Hospital, National Relevance & High Specialization Hospital, Genoa, Italy.
Geriatric Department, CHU Liège, 600, Route de Gaillarmont, 4032 Chènée LIEGE, Belgium.
Age Ageing. 2018 Nov 1;47(6):771-774. doi: 10.1093/ageing/afy026.
Recently, the interest of industry, government agencies and healthcare professionals in technology for aging people has increased. The challenge is whether technology may play a role in enhancing independence and quality of life and in reducing individual and societal costs of caring. Information and communication technologies, i.e. tools aimed at communicating and informing, assistive technologies designed to maintain older peoples' independence and increasing safety, and human-computer interaction technologies for supporting older people with motility and cognitive impairments as humanoid robots, exoskeletons, rehabilitation robots, service robots and companion-type are interdisciplinary topics both in research and in clinical practice. The most promising clinical applications of technologies are housing and safety to guarantee older people remaining in their own homes and communities, mobility and rehabilitation to improve mobility and gait and communication and quality of life by reducing isolation, improve management of medications and transportation. Many factors impair a broad use of technology in older age, including psychosocial and ethical issues, costs and fear of losing human interaction. A substantial lack of appropriate clinical trials to establish the clinical role of technologies to improve physical or cognitive performances and/or quality of life of subjects and their caregivers may suggest that the classical biomedical research model may not be the optimal choice to evaluate technologies in older people. In conclusion, successful technology development requires a great effort in interdisciplinary collaboration to integrate technologies into the existing health and social service systems with the aim to fit into the older adults' everyday life.
最近，业界、政府机构和医疗保健专业人员对老年人技术的兴趣有所增加。挑战在于技术是否可以在增强独立性和生活质量以及降低个人和社会护理成本方面发挥作用。信息和通信技术，即旨在交流和告知的工具、旨在维持老年人独立性和提高安全性的辅助技术以及用于支持有运动和认知障碍的老年人的人机交互技术，如人形机器人、外骨骼、康复机器人、服务机器人和陪伴型机器人，在研究和临床实践中都是跨学科的主题。技术最有前途的临床应用是住房和安全，以确保老年人留在自己的家中和社区中；移动性和康复，以改善移动性和步态；以及通过减少隔离、改善药物管理和交通来提高沟通和生活质量。许多因素阻碍了技术在老年人中的广泛应用，包括心理社会和伦理问题、成本以及担心失去人际互动。缺乏适当的临床试验来确定技术在改善受试者及其护理人员的身体或认知功能和/或生活质量方面的临床作用，这表明经典的生物医学研究模式可能不是评估老年人技术的最佳选择。总之，成功的技术开发需要在跨学科合作方面付出巨大努力，将技术整合到现有的健康和社会服务系统中，以适应老年人的日常生活。
