Advancements in the Understanding of Aging at Home: The Well-Being and Technology Adoption of the Old Older Adults - An Exploratory Study
摘要
With increasing numbers of older adults worldwide, the following topics have become a priority: understanding and promoting aging in place, well-being, and technology adoption. We focused on how well-being is understood by old older adults, those aged between 75 to 84 years old. To them, the concept of aging at home starts to gain relevance alongside the need for receiving care and technology adoption. In our methodology, we have employed questionnaires (2022) and interviews (2024) across four countries: Romania, Portugal, Switzerland, and Denmark, with a total of 71 participants. Three major themes were identified for old older adults: a) with age, the relevance of physical and mental health fade, hence the importance of preserving their wellbeing, b) aging at home means independence and receiving support for this category and c) From the perspective of technology adoption, a second segmentation, based on functional capacity, within the general old older adults’ segmentation (74–85) is necessary. This segmentation based on the functional capacity shows 5 categories of old older adults who have different attitudes towards technology adoption. This study contributes to getting a better insight concerning old older adults’ perspectives on wellbeing and their technology adoption, comparative to the those aged 65 to 74. Enhancing support in care and designing age friendly cities which offer security and foster participation, are contributing factors to aging in place.