Technologies for frail elderly monitoring

The aging of the population in France, but also in Europe and the rest of the world, represents first and foremost a real opportunity for the populations concerned if this aging is successful, but also a clear asset for the economy through the Silver Economy. However, it also represents a major challenge for society, which has to face up to new healthcare and care issues, whether in terms of prevention to enable the elderly to remain independent for as long as possible, or in terms of follow-up to find appropriate responses to the appearance of frailties from whatever source, in a context of strong societal pressure and limited financial resources.

The concept of frailty emerged in North America in the 1980s. It can be seen as a state of precarious equilibrium between medical and social factors, but without any direct link to a specific pathology. Identifying a state of frailty, or a person at risk of frailty, therefore requires consideration and assessment of all its facets: physical, physiological, social and cognitive. This implies the use of complex assessment tools, such as standardized geriatric assessments. It would be illusory to implement them within the framework of standard medical examinations carried out by general practitioners, and even more so outside any medical environment.

An interesting approach is to develop simple tools that can be used to produce a pre-diagnosis, in other words, warning points that then suggest a full geriatric examination to refine the diagnosis and initiate appropriate therapeutic or lifestyle modification actions. The rapid development of information technologies, their intuitive nature and their processing and communication capabilities, mean that it is possible to imagine very simple applications that can be implemented by the people themselves, or by their immediate family and friends, whether professional or otherwise. In addition, the emergence of serious games, which are both fun and motivating, and have a real value in terms of training, assessment or practice, is an additional asset for the creation of non-stigmatizing tools for assessing frailty and monitoring progress linked to a prescription. Finally, everyday objects in the home are increasingly communicating, from the simplest (toothbrushes and bathroom scales) to the most complex (Smart TVs), including, of course, the Smartphone found in most homes. All these objects, beyond their primary vocation, have the capacity to provide information relating to the person in his or her usual environment (weight loss, physical activity, mobility, use of household appliances, etc.), or to enable him or her to react to situations of fragility (social links thanks to connected TV, resumption of physical activity, better nutrition...).

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