In the last sixty years, there has been an increase in life expectance especially in females and in industrialized countries. This, along with the reduction of population growth, is leading to a reversal of the population pyramid: a narrow base of adults has to maintain a wide top of elderly people. Old people are often affected by multi-pathologies and comorbidities. Furthermore, the changes in family's structure, particularly the reduction of the central rule of the Ancients, contribute to create the "frail elderly syndrome." Geriatric frailty is found in 20-30% of the elderly population over 75 and increases with advancing age. It was reported to be associated with long-term adverse health-related outcomes such as increased risk of geriatric syndromes, dependency, disability, hospitalization, institutional placement, and mortality. Obviously, it is also associated with an increase in healthcare costs. Telemedicine is an innovative healthcare system capable of ensuring both higher efficiency and better cost-effectiveness. It has wide variety of services, relative simplicity of use and moderate-low costs. Currently there is clinical evidence of telemonitoring impact on management of several clinical conditions such us chronic heart failure, arrhythmias, pacemaker and ICD controls, cardiac rehabilitation programs, and cardiovascular risk factors.
|Title of host publication||Assistive Technologies: Concepts, Methodologies, Tools, and Applications|
|Number of pages||12|
|ISBN (Print)||9781466644243, 9781466644236|
|Publication status||Published - Aug 31 2013|
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Computer Science(all)
- Social Sciences(all)