Health apps have solution for everything but most older adults don't use them: Study

Lee and co-authors James Aikens, PhD, and Caroline Richardson, M.D., both of the U-M Department of Family Medicine said, the potential was especially important for older adults with diabetes. 

The poll also included questions about continuous glucose monitors, which people with diabetes can wear on their skin to monitor their blood sugar over the long term. Such monitors can connect with mobile devices to feed readings into an app. 

Only 11 per cent of the poll respondents who have Type 2 diabetes said they currently used a CGM, though another 68 per cent had heard of such devices and over half of them said they would potentially be interested in using one. 

"AARP's research has found a sharp increase in older adults purchasing and using technology during the pandemic, and many are interested in using technology to track health measures," said Indira Venkat, Vice President, Consumer Insights at AARP. 

"With more people 50+ owning and using technology, we may start to see an increase in older adults using apps to monitor their health." Recent data show that 83 per cent of people age 50 to 64, and 61 per cent of people over age 65, own a smartphone, and just under half of people in each age group own a tablet device. 

That's up from 34 per cent of 50-64-year-olds and 13 per cent of those over 65 having a smartphone a decade ago, and even lower percentages having tablets at that time. 

Despite this rise, the poll highlighted disparities in the use of mobile health apps by income and education level, as well as age. 

It also shows that lack of awareness, or mistrust of the security of health apps may be holding many older adults back. 

Poll director Preeti Malani, M.D., an infectious disease physician with training in geriatrics at Michigan Medicine, noted that older adults with incomes over $100,000 were nearly three times more likely than those with incomes under $30,000 to use health apps, at 43 per cent vs. 15 per cent. 

Those with college degrees were more than twice as likely to use health apps as those who had not completed high school. 

"People who describe their health as fair or poor - the people who might be most in need of the kind of tracking, support and information a good health app can give - were significantly less likely to use such apps than those who say they're in excellent, very good or good health," Malani noted. 

"Health providers should consider discussing the use of health apps with their patients, because one-third said they had never thought about using one."