Technology to Support Older Adults in Home Palliative Care: A Scoping Review.

Abstract

Background: Today, many older adults use health technologies, approach their final days with laptops, smartphones, and tablets. Telepalliative care is a service that remotely delivers palliative care through videoconferencing, telephonic communication, or remote symptom monitoring. The service meets the needs of patients who want to die at home and reducing unnecessary hospitalizations. The objective of this study is to map the literature on the use of technology by the terminally ill older adult population being cared for at home, to identify which technology systems are in use, to determine how technology can change communication between palliative care professionals and patients, and to explore the strengths or weaknesses patients perceive regarding the use of technology.

Methods: We conducted a scoping review following the methodology of Arksey and O'Malley. A literature search was conducted in the MEDLINE, Embase, Web of Science, SCOPUS, PsycINFO, CINAHL, Ilisi and Google Scholar databases.

Results: Fourteen eligible papers identified various tools available in clinical practice and found that most older adults are comfortable and satisfied using them. Despite being physically distanced from clinicians, patients felt cared for even though eye contact was lacking. Being unfamiliar with technology emerged as a barrier to telepalliative care in addition to difficulties caused by screen size and internet connection problems.

Conclusions: Older adults in palliative care at home perceive technology as a means of receiving efficient care. However, future research is needed to investigate what they look for in a technological tool and to develop more suitable technologies for them.

Clinical trial registration: The protocol of this study has been published in the Open Science Framework (OSF) preregistrations at https://osf.io/acv7q to enhance replicability and transparency and reduce any publication or reporting bias.