Benefits of Technology for residents in the elderly home – A Systematic literiture review

Abstract

It is a common knowledge and scientifically proven that as people grow old, they tend to lose their cognitive ability and functionality, which require frequent or occasional assistant from their families or hired caregivers. This gave rise to the concept of elderly homes or nursing homes where families take their old family members to facilities where they have constant supervision and care at a fee. The concept of nursing homes or elderly homes is mostly common in developed economies such as Finland. Therefore, this study which adopted systematic literature review is aimed to gather knowledge that would lead to the understanding of how nurses can use technology to improve the well-being of the residents in the elderly home. Results revealed that the mostly common technologies adopted by elderly homes include Active and assistive living (AAL), robotics technologies, care robots, companion robots, telehealth, remote monitoring, information, and communication technologies. Furthermore, technologies adopted in elderly homes help enhance wellbeing through interconnectedness, social stimulation, societal re-integration, autonomy acquisition, and capacity stimulation. In addition, the study determined that effective adoption of technology for residents in elderly homes is faced with challenges such as lack of proper technology, accessibility, inclusion, security, privacy, ethical concerns, absence universal standards, and human-centric designs.