The Adoption of 'Silver' e-Health Technologies: First Hints on Technology Acceptance Factors for Elderly in Italy

Our study aims to reveal the factors (and their antecedents) affecting the adoption of technologies for health by senior citizen. In order to achieve a greater generalizability, our model is tested in relation to 4 types of technologies and in different cultural settings. Our research was developed according with a revised TAM model for silver citizens, where most of the variables are derived from an extensive literature review. Primary data were collected in a sample of Italian senior citizens and a Structural Equation Model was built and tested in order to analyze technology adoption in the aged population. Both external variables and social norms were found to be highly effective in explaining perceptions on technologies and adoption strategies

An e-health platform for the elderly population: The butler system

[EN] The Butler system is an e-health platform designed to improve the elderly population's quality of life. The Butler system has three applications diagnostic, therapeutic and playful. The objective of this work is to present the influence of the use of the platform on elderly users' mood states and the degree of acceptance. These measures were assessed through visual analogical scales before and after the platform use, with the outcome measures MANOVAS analyses were performed. Seventeen users (from 58 to 79 years old) completed four sessions with the system; they could choose which technological resources they used in each session. The results showed that after using the system, the participants' insensitive emotions increased and their negative ones decreased. In addition, they obtained high levels of satisfaction, low levels of subjective difficulty and would recommend Butler to other users. Therefore, the results indicate that Butler might be an effective system for improving emotional states in elderly population. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.This study was funded in part by Ministerio de Educacion y Ciencia Spain, Projects Consolider-C (SEJ2006-14301/PSIC), "CIBER of Physiopathology of Obesity and Nutrition, an initiative of ISCIII" and Excellence Research Program PROMETEO (Generalitat Valenciana, Conselleria de Educacion, 2008-157).Etchemendy, E.; Baños, RM.; Botella, C.; Castilla López, DV.; Alcañiz Raya, ML.; Rasal, P.; Farfallini, L. (2011). An e-health platform for the elderly population: The butler system. Computers and Education. 56(1):275-279. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2010.07.022S27527956