Collection

Telemedicine for older adults: advances in medical technology from diagnosis to treatment

Submission status
Open
Open for submission from
16 December 2021
Submission deadline
01 June 2024
Dear Colleagues,

In the recent years the technological advances in the medical field and the concomitant increase in life expectancy have raised a growing interest in telemedicine solutions to address several pathological conditions of the older adults. Moreover, during the COVID-19 pandemic, several frail elderly patients have been self-isolated at home whith a consequent physical activity decline during the past two years, leading to negative implications in terms of both well-being and healthy aging. In this scenario telehealth and telerehabilitation solutions have increasingly gained a crucial role in the healthcare delivery and an increasing evidence has supported telemedicine positive effects in older people. Several diagnostic and therapeutic telemedicine programs, telehealth-supported exercise interventions and digital supported territorial health networks have been proposed to provide specific assessments of frail older people including physical performance and function testing. Nevertheless, different limitations were reported in the current literature, including lack of access to technology or technology skills, or patient’s impairment in hearing, vision, communication, or cognitive functions. In light of these concerns, there is a need for effective patient-tailored strategies to overcome these issues, in order to prove the widest access to healthcare solutions and concomitantly the best treatment for the older adults.

Therefore, the aim of this collection is to provide a broad overview about the evidence supporting telemedicine and telerehabilitative approaches in the older adults, to guide future research in creating precise and specific interventions overcoming the barriers to treatment participation of both patients and caregivers.

Keywords: telerehabilitation, telehealth, telemedicine, older people, gerontology, rehabilitation The peer review process for these articles is the same as the peer review process of the journal in general. Additionally, if the guest editor(s) authors an article in their collection, they will not handle the peer review process.

Editors

  • Marco Invernizzi Marco Invernizzi , 

    Marco Invernizzi

    Prof. Marco Invernizzi, MD, PhD

    Affiliation: Physical and Rehabilitation Medicine, Department of Health Sciences, University of Eastern Piedmont, 10121 Novara, Italy

    Research Interests: rehabilitation; aging; telerehabilitation, physical exercise; pain management; osteoporosis; sarcopenia; cancer rehabilitation; sports medicine; COVID-19.

    Website: https://www.scopus.com/authid/detail.uri?authorId=29467502300

  • Alessandro de Sire Alessandro de Sire  &

    Alessandro de Sire

    Prof. Alessandro de Sire, MD

    Affiliation: Physical and Rehabilitation Medicine, Department of Medical and Surgical Sciences, University of Catanzaro "Magna Graecia", 88100 Catanzaro, Italy.

    Research Interests: rehabilitation; aging; telerehabilitation; osteoarthritis; physical exercise; pain management; osteoporosis; sarcopenia; cancer rehabilitation; sports medicine; COVID-19

    Website: https://www.scopus.com/authid/detail.uri?authorId=56747960300

  • Ozden Ozyemisci Taskiran Ozden Ozyemisci Taskiran

    Ozden Ozyemisci Taskiran

    Prof. Ozden Ozyemisci Taskiran, MD

    Affiliation: Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Koç University School of Medicine, Istanbul, Turkey.

    Research Interests: rehabilitation; aging; telerehabilitation; osteoarthritis; physical exercise; pain management; osteoporosis; sarcopenia; cancer rehabilitation; sports medicine; COVID-19.

    Website: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2052-6072

Articles (13 in this collection)