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Older Adults’ Loneliness, Social Isolation, and Physical Information and Communication Technology in the Era of Ambient Assisted Living: A Systematic Literature Review

BACKGROUND: Loneliness and social isolation can have severe effects on human health and well-being. Partial solutions to combat these circumstances in demographically aging societies have been sought from the field of information and communication technology (ICT). OBJECTIVE: This systematic literat...

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Autores principales: Latikka, Rita, Rubio-Hernández, Rosana, Lohan, Elena Simona, Rantala, Juho, Nieto Fernández, Fernando, Laitinen, Arto, Oksanen, Atte
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: JMIR Publications 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8759023/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34967760
http://dx.doi.org/10.2196/28022
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author Latikka, Rita
Rubio-Hernández, Rosana
Lohan, Elena Simona
Rantala, Juho
Nieto Fernández, Fernando
Laitinen, Arto
Oksanen, Atte
author_facet Latikka, Rita
Rubio-Hernández, Rosana
Lohan, Elena Simona
Rantala, Juho
Nieto Fernández, Fernando
Laitinen, Arto
Oksanen, Atte
author_sort Latikka, Rita
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Loneliness and social isolation can have severe effects on human health and well-being. Partial solutions to combat these circumstances in demographically aging societies have been sought from the field of information and communication technology (ICT). OBJECTIVE: This systematic literature review investigates the research conducted on older adults’ loneliness and social isolation, and physical ICTs, namely robots, wearables, and smart homes, in the era of ambient assisted living (AAL). The aim is to gain insight into how technology can help overcome loneliness and social isolation other than by fostering social communication with people and what the main open-ended challenges according to the reviewed studies are. METHODS: The data were collected from 7 bibliographic databases. A preliminary search resulted in 1271 entries that were screened based on predefined inclusion criteria. The characteristics of the selected studies were coded, and the results were summarized to answer our research questions. RESULTS: The final data set consisted of 23 empirical studies. We found out that ICT solutions such as smart homes can help detect and predict loneliness and social isolation, and technologies such as robotic pets and some other social robots can help alleviate loneliness to some extent. The main open-ended challenges across studies relate to the need for more robust study samples and study designs. Further, the reviewed studies report technology- and topic-specific open-ended challenges. CONCLUSIONS: Technology can help assess older adults’ loneliness and social isolation, and alleviate loneliness without direct interaction with other people. The results are highly relevant in the COVID-19 era, where various social restrictions have been introduced all over the world, and the amount of research literature in this regard has increased recently.
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spelling pubmed-87590232022-02-03 Older Adults’ Loneliness, Social Isolation, and Physical Information and Communication Technology in the Era of Ambient Assisted Living: A Systematic Literature Review Latikka, Rita Rubio-Hernández, Rosana Lohan, Elena Simona Rantala, Juho Nieto Fernández, Fernando Laitinen, Arto Oksanen, Atte J Med Internet Res Review BACKGROUND: Loneliness and social isolation can have severe effects on human health and well-being. Partial solutions to combat these circumstances in demographically aging societies have been sought from the field of information and communication technology (ICT). OBJECTIVE: This systematic literature review investigates the research conducted on older adults’ loneliness and social isolation, and physical ICTs, namely robots, wearables, and smart homes, in the era of ambient assisted living (AAL). The aim is to gain insight into how technology can help overcome loneliness and social isolation other than by fostering social communication with people and what the main open-ended challenges according to the reviewed studies are. METHODS: The data were collected from 7 bibliographic databases. A preliminary search resulted in 1271 entries that were screened based on predefined inclusion criteria. The characteristics of the selected studies were coded, and the results were summarized to answer our research questions. RESULTS: The final data set consisted of 23 empirical studies. We found out that ICT solutions such as smart homes can help detect and predict loneliness and social isolation, and technologies such as robotic pets and some other social robots can help alleviate loneliness to some extent. The main open-ended challenges across studies relate to the need for more robust study samples and study designs. Further, the reviewed studies report technology- and topic-specific open-ended challenges. CONCLUSIONS: Technology can help assess older adults’ loneliness and social isolation, and alleviate loneliness without direct interaction with other people. The results are highly relevant in the COVID-19 era, where various social restrictions have been introduced all over the world, and the amount of research literature in this regard has increased recently. JMIR Publications 2021-12-30 /pmc/articles/PMC8759023/ /pubmed/34967760 http://dx.doi.org/10.2196/28022 Text en ©Rita Latikka, Rosana Rubio-Hernández, Elena Simona Lohan, Juho Rantala, Fernando Nieto Fernández, Arto Laitinen, Atte Oksanen. Originally published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research (https://www.jmir.org), 30.12.2021. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work, first published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research, is properly cited. The complete bibliographic information, a link to the original publication on https://www.jmir.org/, as well as this copyright and license information must be included.
spellingShingle Review
Latikka, Rita
Rubio-Hernández, Rosana
Lohan, Elena Simona
Rantala, Juho
Nieto Fernández, Fernando
Laitinen, Arto
Oksanen, Atte
Older Adults’ Loneliness, Social Isolation, and Physical Information and Communication Technology in the Era of Ambient Assisted Living: A Systematic Literature Review
title Older Adults’ Loneliness, Social Isolation, and Physical Information and Communication Technology in the Era of Ambient Assisted Living: A Systematic Literature Review
title_full Older Adults’ Loneliness, Social Isolation, and Physical Information and Communication Technology in the Era of Ambient Assisted Living: A Systematic Literature Review
title_fullStr Older Adults’ Loneliness, Social Isolation, and Physical Information and Communication Technology in the Era of Ambient Assisted Living: A Systematic Literature Review
title_full_unstemmed Older Adults’ Loneliness, Social Isolation, and Physical Information and Communication Technology in the Era of Ambient Assisted Living: A Systematic Literature Review
title_short Older Adults’ Loneliness, Social Isolation, and Physical Information and Communication Technology in the Era of Ambient Assisted Living: A Systematic Literature Review
title_sort older adults’ loneliness, social isolation, and physical information and communication technology in the era of ambient assisted living: a systematic literature review
topic Review
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8759023/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34967760
http://dx.doi.org/10.2196/28022
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