In June 2018, experts of the EU-funded project FrailSafe – in which AGE is involved – met 16 physiotherapists of the University Hospital in Graz (Austria) at the neurological department to discuss frailty, its effects on older persons and how it impacts treatment outcomes during and after a hospital stay.
After a general introduction and discussion on what frailty is, how it can be described, what the motor symptoms are that physiotherapists observe in their daily practice and how it influences recovery after a neurologic event and its connected hospital admission, a more specific discussion of the EU FrailSafe solution followed. The role of technology in monitoring health conditions such as frailty and the involved devices were explored.
The participants, who had not been working with this kind of new technology in cooperation with other disciplines and their patients before, showed interest in understanding how it works. They identified potential added value in early detection of some symptoms and its development.
However, some critical questions were raised in the area of data donation, data protection and most importantly the “unreadiness” of the older Austrian adults in using such technological devices in their homes. “This is a development where our generation – 40-50 years old at the moment – might profit from in the future; our (grand-) parents’ generations are still too reluctant for this.”
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