Τhe share of older people in the population is continuously rising. Active participation in technological environments can play an essential role in the improvement of quality of life for older people. The TECHSenior project issue appropriate learning programs and tools so that the elders have the benefit to be more independent and active in all aspects of their social life.
Populations around the world are rapidly ageing. Economic development and the improvement in several other factors have contributed to a continuous increase in life expectancy across Europe during the last century and places the EU-28 among the world leaders for life expectancy, reaching 83.3 years for women and 77.8 years for men, according to Eurostat. Older persons have an 18.9% share in the population of the EU-28, an increase of 2.3% compared with 10 years earlier.
How will we keep old people capable of taking care of themselves?
Technology can provide an opportunity to enhance the elderly to remain independent and active in all aspects of social life. The independent and autonomous living, in modern times, is highly associated with the use of PCs or smartphones, because via the internet they have the potential to meet a large number of their needs or to plan their own free time. In this way, an active older person can improve the level of life and enhance mental and social rehabilitation. Making use of the opportunities offered by new technology, the elders will be able for example, to order food and other goods online, use web banking, making electronic transactions, have access to government websites, book tickets, being familiar with the use of tele-medicine and tele-assistance, communicate with friends and or their families by e- mail or other social networks especially when they are in other cities or other countries. In other words making their lives more independent and better. Desirably, professional caregivers and volunteers who come in contact with elders could also be able to support them by making use of new opportunities offered by the new technology. Despite this very important aspect of the use of technology, there is a lack of corresponding educational programs.
Through cooperation between European partners on the TECHSenior project, a training program will be developed in the form of “blended learning”, so that the elderly will be able to acquire basic handling skills of electronic devices and software.
Specifically, two types of educational programs will be created. In the first the human factor is involved by teaching and learning, using specific methods. The second is the creation of an electronic platform «e-learning» which will act as tool storage, as well as the continued support of education is necessary.
The teaching program will be appropriately adapted to the needs that old people have.
For that purpose, training programs will be developed for teachers, trainers or coaches who will be trained to use specific teaching methods and be able to make use of them in training of care staff or directly use them in the training of old people.
The old people that are going to be trained, are split in two distinct groups. The first group old people between 55 and 70 who are more active and the second group of older people between 71 and 80 who are generally accepted to be less active.
Teachers/Trainers will be trained properly in order to be able to directly train old people. In addition, they will train care workers to help people, not only to learn about new technologies, but also to improve their personal development.
Professional care workers and volunteers are in direct contact with the elderly. They will be able to support them by making use of the opportunities offered by technology.
