Information and Communication Technologies for Managing Frailty: A Systematic Literature Review

Frailty is a prevalent condition among Canadians; over one million are diagnosed as medically frail, and in the next ten years this number will double. Information and telecommunication technologies can provide a low-cost method for managing frailty more proactively. This study aims to examine the range and extent of information and telecommunication technologies for managing frailty in older adults, their technology readiness level, the evidence, and the associated outcomes. A systematic literature review was conducted. Four databases were searched for studies: Medline, EMBASE, CINAHL, and Web of Science. In total, we included 19 studies (out of 9,930) for the data abstraction. Overall, our findings indicate that (1) the proposed frailty phenotype is the most common ground truth to be used for assessing frailty; (2) the most common uses of information and telecommunication technologies for managing frailty are detection, and monitoring and detection, while interventional studies on frailty are very rare; (3) the five main types of information and telecommunication technologies for managing frailty in older adults are information and telecommunication technology-based platforms, smartphones, telemonitoring (home monitoring), wearable sensors and devices (commercial off-the-shelf), and multimedia formats for online access; (4) the technology readiness level of information and telecommunication technologies for managing frailty in older adults is the “Technology Demonstration” level, i.e., not yet ready to be operated in an actual operating environment; and (5) the level of evidence is still low for information and telecommunication technology studies that manage frailty in older adults. In conclusion, information and telecommunication technologies for managing frailty in the older adult population are not yet ready to be full-fledged technologies for this purpose.