Perspective Chapter: Telehealth Technologies for the Elderly People

Abstract

Home telehealth technology delivers a telemedicine tool for elder adults to take an active role in the management of their chronic diseases. This study aimed to determine the requirements and applications of home telehealth systems to monitor health parameters of the elderly. Electronic databases including PubMed, Scopus, Web of Science complemented by Google Scholar were searched. This systematic review was conducted based on preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses. In this study, 21 articles met the inclusion criteria and were included in the final review. There were 80 different requirements and 15 types of applications to create a home telehealth system specifically for the elderly. The highest frequency of applications element was related to the “blood pressure” (18%) and the lowest frequency related to items such as blood coagulation (1%) monitoring. Other systems` elements were “alert system” (12%), “information analysis” (12%), smartphone (20%), and internet (23%). Recognizing all used requirements and achieved capabilities may assist in designing more effective systems. They might be expanded at national level to meet the elderly’s needs at a greater scale.