Digital health adoption among older adults remains significantly below potential despite clear clinical benefits, driven primarily by behavioral and cognitive barriers rather than technology limitations. A bibliometric analysis of 415 studies reveals fragmented research without consensus on which interventions reliably improve acceptance across populations.
Key Points
- Behavioral and cognitive barriers dominate adoption barriers, not technology
- Research landscape remains fragmented with no consensus interventions
- Older adults underutilize digital health despite substantial clinical benefits
Longevity Analysis
The capacity to monitor and respond to physiological signals in real time—through telehealth systems, remote disease management, and wearable data integration—represents a fundamental shift in how chronically ill older adults maintain homeostasis and prevent system dysfunction. The gap between available tools and actual use reveals a critical failure not in technology design but in how information flows between systems: medical professionals cannot interpret behavioral resistance correctly, and older adults receive no coherent guidance on which tools match their actual needs and cognitive capacity. Closing this gap requires precise identification of what blocks adoption in specific populations and environments, then targeted practice to build new patterns of engagement—not simply distributing devices.
Original published by SAGE Research on Aging, by Barış Kılıç, Ezgi Pektaş, Gerhard Müller, Gülüşan Özgün Başıbüyük1Department of Gerontology, Institute of Health Sciences, 37502Akdeniz University, Antalya, Türkiye2Department of Gerontology, Faculty of Health Sciences, 532719Istanbul University-Cerrahpasa, Istanbul, Türkiye3Department of Nursing Science and Gerontology, Institute of Nursing Science, 31510UMIT TIROL - Private University of Health Sciences and Health Technology, Hall in Tirol, Austria4Department of Gerontology, Faculty of Health Sciences, 37502Akdeniz University, Antalya, Türkiye.