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Older Adults—Potential Users of Technologies

Background and objective: The successful adoption of technology is becoming increasingly important to functional independence and successful ageing in place. A better understanding of technology usage amongst older people may help to direct future interventions aimed at improving their healthcare. W...

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Autores principales: Lesauskaitė, Vita, Damulevičienė, Gytė, Knašienė, Jurgita, Kazanavičius, Egidijus, Liutkevičius, Agnius, Janavičiūtė, Audronė
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2019
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6631069/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31181673
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/medicina55060253
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author Lesauskaitė, Vita
Damulevičienė, Gytė
Knašienė, Jurgita
Kazanavičius, Egidijus
Liutkevičius, Agnius
Janavičiūtė, Audronė
author_facet Lesauskaitė, Vita
Damulevičienė, Gytė
Knašienė, Jurgita
Kazanavičius, Egidijus
Liutkevičius, Agnius
Janavičiūtė, Audronė
author_sort Lesauskaitė, Vita
collection PubMed
description Background and objective: The successful adoption of technology is becoming increasingly important to functional independence and successful ageing in place. A better understanding of technology usage amongst older people may help to direct future interventions aimed at improving their healthcare. We aimed to obtain the first data regarding technology use, including gerontechnologies, represented by fall detectors, from older adults in Lithuania. Material and methods: The research was carried out in the framework of the project Smart Gerontechnology for Healthy Ageing, which involved assessing the use of technologies and the readiness to use gerontechnologies, as represented by fall detectors. A total of 375 individuals that were more than 60 years of age were enrolled in the study. The self-reporting questionnaires were completed by geriatric in-patients, hospitalized in the geriatric department, and also by community-dwelling older adults. Results: Geriatric in-patients’ use of computers and the internet was associated with age (every year of age decreased the probability of computer and internet use by 0.9-times) and a positive attitude towards new technologies—this predictor increased the use of a computer by six-times in comparison with people who did not have such an attitude. Sex and education had no influence on computer use for geriatric in-patients. For community-dwelling older adults, the use of computers and internet was associated with age, education (a university education increased the use of computers and the internet by four times), and a positive attitude towards technologies. Conclusions: Lithuanian older women in the study used computers, the internet, and cell phones equally with men. Increasing age was a strong negative predictor of technology use. A positive attitude to new technologies was a strong positive predictor of technology use. Most geriatric patients and community-dwelling older adults were ready to use technologies that permit ageing in place.
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spelling pubmed-66310692019-08-19 Older Adults—Potential Users of Technologies Lesauskaitė, Vita Damulevičienė, Gytė Knašienė, Jurgita Kazanavičius, Egidijus Liutkevičius, Agnius Janavičiūtė, Audronė Medicina (Kaunas) Article Background and objective: The successful adoption of technology is becoming increasingly important to functional independence and successful ageing in place. A better understanding of technology usage amongst older people may help to direct future interventions aimed at improving their healthcare. We aimed to obtain the first data regarding technology use, including gerontechnologies, represented by fall detectors, from older adults in Lithuania. Material and methods: The research was carried out in the framework of the project Smart Gerontechnology for Healthy Ageing, which involved assessing the use of technologies and the readiness to use gerontechnologies, as represented by fall detectors. A total of 375 individuals that were more than 60 years of age were enrolled in the study. The self-reporting questionnaires were completed by geriatric in-patients, hospitalized in the geriatric department, and also by community-dwelling older adults. Results: Geriatric in-patients’ use of computers and the internet was associated with age (every year of age decreased the probability of computer and internet use by 0.9-times) and a positive attitude towards new technologies—this predictor increased the use of a computer by six-times in comparison with people who did not have such an attitude. Sex and education had no influence on computer use for geriatric in-patients. For community-dwelling older adults, the use of computers and internet was associated with age, education (a university education increased the use of computers and the internet by four times), and a positive attitude towards technologies. Conclusions: Lithuanian older women in the study used computers, the internet, and cell phones equally with men. Increasing age was a strong negative predictor of technology use. A positive attitude to new technologies was a strong positive predictor of technology use. Most geriatric patients and community-dwelling older adults were ready to use technologies that permit ageing in place. MDPI 2019-06-07 /pmc/articles/PMC6631069/ /pubmed/31181673 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/medicina55060253 Text en © 2019 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Lesauskaitė, Vita
Damulevičienė, Gytė
Knašienė, Jurgita
Kazanavičius, Egidijus
Liutkevičius, Agnius
Janavičiūtė, Audronė
Older Adults—Potential Users of Technologies
title Older Adults—Potential Users of Technologies
title_full Older Adults—Potential Users of Technologies
title_fullStr Older Adults—Potential Users of Technologies
title_full_unstemmed Older Adults—Potential Users of Technologies
title_short Older Adults—Potential Users of Technologies
title_sort older adults—potential users of technologies
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6631069/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31181673
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/medicina55060253
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