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M. Morikawa1, S. Lee1, K. Makino1, K. Harada1, O. Katayama1, K. Tomida1, R. Yamaguchi1, C. Nishijima1, K. Fujii1, Y. Misu1, H. Shimada1
1The National Center for Geriatrics and Gerontology, Preventive Gerontology, Obu, Japan
Background: Delaying the onset of disability is important for maintaining independence and quality of life in community-dwelling older adults. Given that social isolation is a significant risk factor for disability, effective means associated with social isolation are needed to delay the disability. Although information and communication technology (ICT) may be a reasonable measure considering the recent social contexts due to the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic, further insights are required.
Purpose: To investigate the delay effect of ICT use for the functional disability onset in socially isolated older adults.
Methods: A total of 4,346 older adults (age: 73.5±5.3, female: 56.0%) participated health-checkup and obtained a consent to this study. SI was defined as meeting two or more of these items:
1) living alone,
2) no face-to-face conversations with acquaintances/friends other than family members, and
3) no participation in a group exercise circle or meetings of senior citizen associations, neighborhood associations, or other groups.
ICT use was defined if either of the following questions answered “Yes”: “Do you recently use your smartphone?” and “Do you use a computer in everyday life in the past year?” Groups were set up based on a combination of SI and ICT use (non-SI/ICT, non-SI/non-ICT, SI/ICT, SI/non-ICT). The disability onset was defined as a new case certificated Long-Term Care Insurance System in Japan after the participation to the checkup by 2 years. Age, sex, education level, eye disease, number of medications, gait speed, geriatrics depression score, mini-mental state examination, and income level were also assessed as covariates.
1) living alone,
2) no face-to-face conversations with acquaintances/friends other than family members, and
3) no participation in a group exercise circle or meetings of senior citizen associations, neighborhood associations, or other groups.
ICT use was defined if either of the following questions answered “Yes”: “Do you recently use your smartphone?” and “Do you use a computer in everyday life in the past year?” Groups were set up based on a combination of SI and ICT use (non-SI/ICT, non-SI/non-ICT, SI/ICT, SI/non-ICT). The disability onset was defined as a new case certificated Long-Term Care Insurance System in Japan after the participation to the checkup by 2 years. Age, sex, education level, eye disease, number of medications, gait speed, geriatrics depression score, mini-mental state examination, and income level were also assessed as covariates.
Results: The number of disabilities onset were as follows: non-social isolation and ICT users, n=44 (2.2%); social isolation and ICT users, n=4 (2.4%), non-social isolation and ICT non-users, n=105 (5.5%), and social isolation and ICT non-users, n=34 (12.4%). When setting the group of non-SI and ICT use as reference category, Cox regression analysis against disability onset determined the significantly increased hazard ratio (HR) in SI and non-ICT use (HR=3.667; 95% CI 1.106-12.115), but not in non-SI and ICT use (HR=1.350; 95% CI 0.414-4.404) and SI and ICT use(HR=1.880; 95% CI 0.591-5.982).
Conclusions: ICT use (computer and/or smartphone use) could delay[HK1]the disability onset in social isolated community-dwelling older adults. This study targeted socially isolated older people who lacked face-to-face interaction and showed that ICT may delay the functional disability onset in this population.
Implications: Toward considering the measure blocking the SI related harmful outcome in community-level setting (WHO, 2021), applying the ICT would be reasonable for postponing the functional disability onset in older adults.
Funding acknowledgements: AMED (Grant 15dk0207019h0001, 18dk0110021h0003, and 18le0110004h0002), Research Funding for Longevity Sciences (27-22 and 28-30)
Keywords:
information and communication technology
disability onset
older people
information and communication technology
disability onset
older people
Topics:
Older people
Health promotion & wellbeing/healthy ageing/physical activity
Disability & rehabilitation
Older people
Health promotion & wellbeing/healthy ageing/physical activity
Disability & rehabilitation
Did this work require ethics approval? Yes
Institution: National Center for Geriatrics and Gerontology
Committee: Ethics Committee of the National Center for Geriatrics and Gerontology
Ethics number: approval number:1067-3
All authors, affiliations and abstracts have been published as submitted.
