Five Trends Driving Potential of Wearables for Older Adults

Laurie Orlov has identified five trends driving the potential of wearable technology for older adults.  Orlov is a tech industry veteran, writer, speaker, elder care advocate, and founder of Aging and Health Technology Watch (an excellent blog to which every reader should subscribe). 

Wearable technology is nothing new, perhaps, but application to and use by the older community has always been a question.  From activity trackers that gained popularity in the past decade, to introduction of smart watches by Apple in 2015, the adoption of wearables by older adults has continued to grow. New products, like the Oura Ring, the Apple Watch Series 6 and the Samsung Galaxy Watch 3 Active, or the Bose SoundControl hearing aid, continue to fuel interest in their potential for older adults.

The five trends she identified are:  

• Forecasts of purchases are rising. The analyst firm Gartner has predicted, in its January 2021 forecast, that worldwide end-user spending on wearable devices will reach $81.5 billion this year, representing an 18.1% increase over 2020, when spending reached $69 billion. The growth is being attributed to increased remote working and a higher interest in health monitoring.  According to Orlov, IDC forecast growth in hearables (397 million units) and smart watch shipments (156 million units) out to 2024, and an Apple Watch insider told her that 3-5 million Apple watches alone have been purchased by adults age 65+.

• Health-tracking devices and usage grew in 2020. According to Rock Health, 66% of those who started using a wearable did so to manage a diagnosed health condition.  And more than 51% of wearables owners use the device to manage a diagnosed health condition.  Specific health attributes included weight, heart rate, blood pressure. It should be noted data was collected prior to the 2020 Covid-19 lockdowns.

• Views on the patient's role in their medical are changing.  In 2013, Leroy Hood published a paper, “Systems Biology and P4 Medicine: Past, Present, and Future” that introduced the idea that patients had a role in their own care, saying that medicine should be ‘predictive, preventive, personalized, and participatory.” That concept became a basis for the growing interest in the role of wearables as capable of assisting in all four attributes.  The public is taking a greater role, in part due to availability of devices that make them active participants, and in part as they discern their own specific goal and objectives regarding health care.

• Consumers show preferences about what to track.  Even before the Covid-19 pandemic, as of January, 2020, the Guidance for Wearable Health Solutions white paper noted that users of wearables were showing preferences about what to track, expressing, for example, interest in tracking blood pressure and heart health. 

• Growing consumer interest in actually utilizing wearable health solution information. Because individuals want to participate in their own health, they not only want to track, but also to share data with their doctor to help with a more accurate diagnosis. The Consumer Technology Association has been surveying consumers – and noted that even in February of 2019, 58% of consumers were willing to share health data with their doctor to gain a more accurate diagnosis and treatment.

Technology can be a game-changer for an older person's ability to age in place,  whether at home, in a community, with friends or family, or even in an institution.  Technology is persistent, does not become weary or burdened emotionally, physically, or mentally, and particularly where incorporated with robust human contact, interaction, oversight, and review, can empower choices that  simply are not otherwise possible.