Telehealth has a remarkable ability to provide comfortable health solutions for everyone, especially seniors, as it allows keeping all the aspects of their health situation into consideration without any complexity.
Telehealth provides accessible communication through chat, simple health solutions, digital monitoring, and tracking of health cases to expert advice, 24/7 helpline, and direct specialist consultation.
If you require fast, convenient, and affordable health solutions in a few clicks, Telehealth is the right tool to access.
What is Telehealth?
Telehealth is a technology for managing health through digital solutions. Online remote support health care technology can easily monitor health technically with automation and new techniques.
Telehealth services through chat, voice calls, and video calls from your mobile phone or your computer are reliable options to reach the patient remotely.
In addition to this, the mobile application handles all health-related inputs from the patient, such as,
● Fixing an appointment with a doctor
● Depending on the medical condition, you are also guided on food charts,
exercise types and appointment schedules
● Assigning digital prescriptions and keeping track of daily dose intakes
● Giving medication reminder
● Generating daily, weekly, and monthly health reports
● Tracking the treatment process
Prospective of the seniors
Telehealth has been making a massive difference in the perspective of digital solutions. It is only for the betterment of all. We can adopt this change and pick up the pace of life, but for experienced older citizens, it’s not easy.
In other words, we must give the senior citizens time and attention.
Make the seniors understand the use of technology and train them well. The trust factor is essential. It’s not easy for senior adults to realize that health treatment can be possible on a digital platform. Post-pandemic, this was the call of time to arrange online treatment setups. Reasonable measures were taken to make everyone understand the need to connect online.
Introduction to technology
The central part of society was curious and excited to access telehealth technology, whereas one sensitive section of society needed special attention.
Certain sections of the elderly lack technology literacy, computer anxiety, chronic health issues, major health problems, or seniors located in remote areas with less scope of using electronic mediums or the internet.
For that reason, the first essential step to adopting the technology was to make the seniors more comfortable with the tools.
With proper guidance from the online help desk, family or friends, measures were taken to help the elderly use the telehealth services, or it was taken care of by the caretakers or members of the family.
Problems seniors face in adopting new technology.
Mental Strain
Not being well-versed with the electronic digital mediums and lack of understanding of the subject with less or no computer literacy can affect seniors’ use of technological mediums.
Perception
With age and experience, we develop our minds in a certain way. Face-to-face physician consultancy is no doubt the most trustable way to get treatment. However, the pandemic changed the perception of it.
As a result, online treatments were the solution to overcome those problems during the pandemic, especially for the elderly, to prevent them from infections.
Digital Anxiety
Seniors are not comfortable with the new technology and may lack exposure to digital mediums. In addition, the computer handling pressures and health problems like hearing problems, mobility issues, or chronic health conditions applied restrictions and limitations for many to access telehealth technology.
Friendly Advice
Well received advice from trusted sources like family, friends, or caretakers. A physician’s advice on how helpful and better the new technology is to help one and all. The trust factor was essential to get introduced to Telehealth and use it.
Basic Problems to Face
The most common problem the senior citizens face while using the digital platform is the proper use of mobile phones, as not all seniors can be comfortable with smartphones.
With limited motor skills and vision stability, it becomes difficult for seniors to use the online tools comfortably. As a result, there is a high possibility of feeding the wrong data into the sheet, which may generate the wrong diagnosis.
Medical conditions that telehealth applications for the seniors can cure
Telehealth provides various ways to cure many illnesses remotely. For that reason, patients don’t have to travel and reach hospitals for treatment. As a result, it saves a lot of energy and time for senior adults.
The following are the conditions where Telehealth helps and makes the situation more satisfactory for the seniors.
– Allergies that require long-term treatment can be handled well with proper treatment
– Viral infections, flu or Infections, UTIs, and post-surgery follow-ups can be dealt with through virtual treatment
– Mental stress or anxiety can be treated with good consultation and with expert advice
– Timely consultation for blood pressure or diabetes can be cured through telehealth consultancy
Telehealth advice for the caregivers.
Caregivers or family members often struggle to attend hospital visits with the elderly due to their other responsibilities. However, Telehealth allows families or caretakers to spend more time with the elderly at home or in their comfort zone.
The healthcare tracker sends reminders for the daily dose intake or notifies the refilling of the medicines as per the course.
Advisory reports are also generated for the caregivers on tackling the health-related situation with the elderly in case of emergency.
Conclusion
In such crucial times during and after the pandemic, Telehealth for seniors is a boon and has proved a great help for the patients who cannot get to the hospital for treatment.
Virtual calls, automated report trackers, and a patient portal are some utilities that have successfully given the best results during that time.
For that reason, the practice of online consultation should be regularly implemented to provide more comprehensive healthcare solutions for seniors.
Not all medical issues can be treated online, but most of them have an excellent success rate.
Proving that technology is here to help the much needed. Future has more excellent options for a better life and solving medical issues in a few clicks.