Designing self-care for increased health of older people in the digital age

Purpose and goal

The project aimed to establish a network of third-party organisations involved in digital health in order to develop research on how increasingly developing digital technologies could contribute to the older people´s wellbeing. The research objectives set for this project were achieved as planned: Three papers were published in the international conferences; the questionnaire about digital health and the elderly is designed and waiting for the ethical approval; cooperative relationships with Uppsala County, Uppsala city, the company operating group homes throughout Sweden.

Expected results and effects

The published papers based on the project activities are a groundbreaking analysis of the use of digital health in the care of older people from the perspective of information ethics, and are expected to be used in similar research in the future. The network established through this project has also enabled new research projects and new collaborations with the third institutions to be initiated and developed into novel research activities domestically and internationally. Further development of the project´s themes will surely contribute to improving wellbeing in an ageing society.

Planned approach and implementation

As the nine-month seed-funding project, we designed a research plan that could lead to further research after this project. The scientific activities concentrated on making papers on digital health and ethics and on making a questionnaire for the field work. The construction of a network, which is essential for the development of research, involved active exchange of views with people actually working in the care sector. Although the PI changed during the project period, the research design and implementation were very realistic and meaningful, leading to the next research project.