Digital Respiratory Technologies Across the Lifespan: An Overview of Opportunities and Challenges From Children to Older Adults

Topic Importance: 

Digital health technologies (DHTs), such as mobile health technologies, wearables, telehealth, and telemonitoring, are used increasingly in health care. This is particularly true for respiratory conditions such as asthma, cystic fibrosis, TB, interstitial lung disease, and COPD because DHTs can support diagnosis, self-management, and ongoing care. However, respiratory conditions change across an individual's lifespan in both their presentation and management priorities for the clinician and patient. This creates new challenges and opportunities for using DHTs. Adopting an all-of-life approach is key when considering DHT use within each life stage and across the lifespan. 

Review Findings: 

This review highlights that increasing but varying amounts of evidence exist for each life stage, from infancy through older adults. Each life stage includes both common and unique considerations for DHT adoption and use. Common considerations include ensuring the involvement of the end user in the codesign of DHT, adapt DHT for the user age group and capability, ensure that care is patient centered not technology led, and involve family or carers where appropriate for young and older persons. The literature considering the health professional view of DHT use across disease agnostic areas remains limited. DHTs increasingly are used in respiratory health care, despite varying degrees of evidence to support their use across different life stages. Research on DHT use in young and older people should be prioritized. Because individuals grow and change across the lifespan, adopting an all-of-life approach is crucial for the technologies they use.