A study of wearable devices to track older adults' health and well-being

The purpose of the present study is to evaluate the effectiveness of using multi-parameter monitoring devices in the elderly to improve their quality of life not already understood as the absence of disease but in a logic that is intrinsically linked to the body-mind relationship, which is increasingly significant as biological age advances. The study will be conducted on a sample of volunteer elderly subjects who will wear devices capable of constantly monitoring vital parameters such as heart rate, physical activity, sleep quality, stress levels and higher level activities, linked sensory and cognitive aspects ecologically integrated with the elderly person's living environment, in the sense of an evaluative and qualitative focus on relationships within the person's area of action/interaction, possibly supported and stimulated by individualized and easily usable activities. The signals interpreted and returned by the technology to the elderly person who uses it can also act as a reassuring self-assessment of even normal body states, sometimes experienced as threatening and anxiogenic, thus stressful. The collection and management of these data may serve as a reference to the recognition of distress signals and complex experiences (e.g., depressive) that normally have significant effects on mental health, understood as intrinsically linked to the health of the body.