Modern technologies for improving elderly patients’ compliance

Abstract

Ageing is associated with decreasing psychomotor skills and an increasing dependency upon others. Family bonds in modern societies are often weakened or broken, and thus the traditional primary source of support for the elderly has largely ceased to exist. Progressive multimorbidity means that elderly patients often have to adhere to multiple overlapping drug regimens, involving long-term or even indefinite medication protocols. Such chronic polypharmacy is likely to adversely affect patients’ adherence. We performed a literature review with the aim of identifying, first, the problems associated with compliance with medical directions among people 60 years of age and older and, second, the solutions to this problem now available due to modern technological advances. The gold standard of therapy in elderly patients is personally observed or directed therapy, but in practice, this is often unavailable. The phenomenon of the ageing of society challenges the healthcare system with an increasing number of community-dwelling elderly people who are in-creasingly dependent upon others, which negatively impacts their level of adherence to therapy. Considering the deepening scarcity of medical personnel and the limited availability of caregivers, only broad application of solutions based on modern technologies will be able to significantly improve patients’ compliance, and thus the effectiveness of their treatment.

Keywords

• patient compliance
• medication adherence
• cooperative behavior
• information technology
• aged
• drug therapy.