mHealth for ageing populations: Community, participation, connectivity and mobile technologies for older people

We first identify the older population to set the context for the discussion on their community participation, connectivity, and mobile device usage. We then provide the theoretical background to frame our chapter and orient the reader to understand the complexity of the relationship between older persons and their desires and needs for connectivity through specialized information and communications technology (ICT) tools. Central to this discussion are the free mobile device applications that are currently available at no cost to the consumer, like the free kiosks placed in some Australian public/municipal libraries. There are some mobile applications that are used to promote a safe environment for social networking, while others afford language translation to provide added comfort for older people who may wish to revert to their linguistic origins later in life. We use personas and scenarios to identify some mobile applications that are designed for older people that include medical, health and fitness, maintaining a quality lifestyle, well-being and sourcing aged care, and general products and day-to-day necessities.