Is Technology Present in Frailty? Technology a Back-up Tool for Dealing with Frailty in the Elderly: A Systematic Review

This study analyzes the technologies used in dealing with frailty within the following areas: prevention, care, diagnosis and treatment. The aim of this paper is, on the one hand, to analyze the extent to which technology is present in terms of its relationship with frailty and what technological resources are used to treat it. Its other purpose is to define new challenges and contributions made by physiotherapy using technology. Eighty documents related to research, validation and/or the ascertaining of different types of hardware, software or both were reviewed in prominent areas. The authors used the following scales: in the area of diagnosis, Fried’s phenotype model of frailty and a model based on trials for the design of devices. The technologies developed that are based on these models accounted for 55% and 45% of cases respectively. In the area of prevention, the results proved similar regarding the use of wireless sensors with cameras (35.71%), and Kinect™ sensors (28.57%) to analyze movements and postures that indicate a risk of falling. In the area of care, results were found referring to the use of different motion, physiological and environmental wireless sensors (46,15%), i.e. so-called smart homes. In the area of treatment, the results show with a percentage of 37.5% that the Nintendo(®) Wii™ console is the most used tool for treating frailty in elderly persons. Further work needs to be carried out to reduce the gap existing between technology, frail elderly persons, healthcare professionals and carers to bring together the different views about technology. This need raises the challenge of developing and implementing technology in physiotherapy via serious games that may via play and connectivity help to improve the functional capacity, general health and quality of life of frail individuals.