Digital Health Technologies for Metabolic Disorders in Older Adults: A Scoping Review Protocol

Abstract

AbstractIntroductionMetabolic disorders (type 2 diabetes, insulin resistance, hyperglycemia, obesity, hyperlipidemia, hypertension, nonalcoholic fatty liver disease, and metabolic syndrome) are leading causes of mortality and disability worldwide and disproportionately affect older adults relative to those younger. Digital health technologies (DHTs), such as patient monitoring, digital diagnostics, and digital therapeutics, emerge as promising tools for navigating health in day-to-day life. However, their role in targeting metabolic disorders, particularly among a key demographic of older adults, is not yet fully understood. Thus, this work aims to scope the use of DHTs in managing metabolic health disorders among older adults.Methods and AnalysisWe will conduct a scoping review following the recommended framework by Arksey and O’Malley (1). Our search will focus on three primary concepts: metabolic disorders, DHTs, and older adults. We plan to search five online databases—Cochrane, Embase, PubMed, Scopus, and Web of Science—to identify original research articles published between January 2014 and January 2024. Two reviewers will independently screen articles for inclusion based on predetermined criteria, and a separate reviewer will resolve conflicts. Data will be extracted using a standardized form, and the findings will be synthesized and reported qualitatively and quantitatively.Ethics and disseminationNo ethics approval is required for this protocol and scoping review, as data will be used only from published studies with appropriate ethics approval. Results will be disseminated in a peer-reviewed publication.This protocol has been preregistered on OSF Repository at:https://osf.io/9s8fm.Strengths and limitations of this studyTo our knowledge, this scoping review is the first to scope the landscape of DHTs for targeting metabolic disorders among older adults.We apply the DHT Ecosystem Categorization for a more standardized overview of the peer-reviewed empirical literature across multiple databases and follow rigorous scoping review reporting guidelines.Consistent with the nature of scoping reviews, our study does not include an assessment of the quality of the included studies, only involves studies in English, and does not include non-peer reviewed industry reports, which may also provide relevant information.Since our pre-existing definition of metabolic disorders focuses on various pre-defined major conditions, there exists a possibility that we may not comprehensively capture all possible instances of metabolic disorders among older adults.