Technology as an ally in the race for healthy ageing. Interview with Iñaki Bartolomé Martín (Kwido)

The myth that older people are incompatible with new technologies is increasingly untrue. For better or worse, technology is an inescapable part of our lives, regardless of age group. The elderly are no exception, nor do they want to be. Technology allows them to connect with their health through telemonitoring and teleconsultation, but also with society and the world around them, thus avoiding loneliness and boredom. It can be difficult at first. Reluctance and fear of the unknown and the new are also common in our species at any age. However, if the process of familiarisation with technology is eased, it is rare for an older adult to be inclined to reject it. In the end, we all complain that technologies complicate our lives. But let's not be cynical: we are delighted with the possibilities they offer us, whether we are young or old. 

Iñaki Bartolomé Martín is very clear about this. This Bilbao-born expert in software solutions for care (eHealth) in the healthcare sector has no doubts about the benefits that technology brings in terms of improving the living conditions of the elderly. That is why, ten years ago, after creating Ideable Solutions (www.ideable.net), a digital transformation 4.0 company that offers consulting services, cloud and mobile solutions and software for industry, he created the Kwido project (www.kwido.com), an IT platform to host applications and services designed to have a direct impact on the experience of ageing and on society. 

I met Iñaki some time ago through social networks (@ibartolome) and, since then, I have been following his work closely. Kwido has been in operation for a few years now, helping to telemonitor health, to speed up teleconsultation, to train cognitive abilities with virtual and augmented reality, to track activity inside and outside the home and even certifying the quality of other applications in the healthcare sector in Europe (www.zocaalo.eu). It offers its services to telecare and home care programmes, to day centres and residences and to all types of public and private organisations. A leading software development company for the care of the elderly on our continent, it was not only Kwido that prompted me to write to its CEO to interview him for Ageing in Society, but also the curiosity to know the personal motivation behind this initiative.

This computer programmer is far from the cliché of the withdrawn and isolated guy who enters code into a machine without worrying about the material result of his work. Iñaki does what he does because he is concerned not only about the physical and mental health of the elderly, but also about the social dimension of their well-being. He is troubled by problems such as unwanted loneliness or chronic boredom and wants to offer a solution to these through technology in a way that has never been done before.

"My parents are old and have difficulties even making video calls or seeing photos of the grandchildren because WhatsApp is complex for them. There is a great need, in this sense, to bring technology closer to the elderly to prevent loneliness and boredom", Iñaki explains. 

As a technologist, he bases his social approach not only on his own personal experience, but also on dealing with the elderly themselves and with the caregivers who, in the end, provide him with a broad view of problems such as loneliness or boredom which, he says, "can be as harmful as the physical and cognitive deterioration and diseases that emerge during adulthood and progress towards the third and fourth ages". Iñaki has found, over time, that these negative states "worsen health and increase fragility". That is why he believes it is so important to connect people by using technology to "give meaning to the daily lives of the elderly". 

It is not just a matter of creating technological devices, but of making them part of broad strategies, focused on promoting life projects. "There comes a point, sometimes a very radical one, which is retirement, when we go from one hundred to zero in a very short time, and suddenly we fall into a hedonistic lifestyle, we believe that we no longer have to do anything; then comes that boredom and, with it, discouragement. When health starts to get in the way, the perspective can't be to give up and gradually switch off," Iñaki maintains: "Sitting in front of the television won't improve the situation," he warns, "so we have a social challenge that can be partly tackled by technology, insofar as it makes it possible to connect people with each other and with spaces of activity - such as volunteering - that keep loneliness and boredom at bay.  

I sensed that the daily tedium to which many elderly people are driven by a lack of contact and entertainment was something that Iñaki was well aware of when, a couple of months ago, he unveiled a new success story: the implementation of Kwido by the Basque social and healthcare group IMQ Igurco to maintain the physical and cognitive skills of the elderly and ensure that users, family members and carers are brought closer together. Among the applications integrated in Kwido was one called "Leisure". My eyes quickly lit up: someone was thinking about the need for entertainment and pleasure in this sector of the population! 

As a specialist in the study of boredom, who finds it disturbing that the elderly are bored to excess and that so few academics are dedicated to the study of this problem in our country, for a moment I stopped feeling lonely thanks to Iñaki's idea. Until now, I had only known of one other technological solution in the health care sector designed in part to alleviate boredom: the virtual caregiver by computer engineers M. Anwar Hossain and D. Tanvir Ahmed of King Saud University in Saudi Arabia. 

Leisure is an important part of any life project, according to Iñaki: "We all like to be entertained and have fun". For this reason, in addition to an integrated health monitoring and personalised exercise application ("Health") and another for calls and video calls to connect with family, friends and professionals ("Call"), "Leisure" opens the door in one click to music, the news of the day, mind games and the viewing of photos and videos that contacts can share directly with the user. But awareness of the need for and benefits of entertainment goes beyond "Leisure". As Iñaki points out, it is behind the whole platform: "communication itself is leisure, doing sports exercises is fun, connecting with caregivers is entertaining". 

Kwido aims to attract, motivate and, of course, entertain through the simple concept of "connection": connection with the family, connection with carers and connection with the world. And all of this is underpinned by the key to success, which is the promotion of "interaction". 

I was missing an essential component to understand the scope of Kwido, and I had to ask Iñaki himself about this: how do you achieve something as relevant to the culture of care today as personalisation? I imagined that, suddenly, the whole mental house of cards I had created around this platform collapsed when a grandparent went to listen to some music and found a playlist that was totally alien to his tastes and was disappointed. It is clear that some functions are completely personalised, such as the exercise videos provided by professionals or the photographs sent by family members. But for the rest, was it just a large, simplified and intuitive mobile phone? Well, no.  

"Each person likes and is interested in different things," admits Iñaki, "If we start sharing sports news with everyone, perhaps a percentage of users are not interested and the platform ends up causing them to reject it. For this reason, the content menu is different and dynamic for each person. Not only care has to be personalised, but also leisure. Thus, from the different centres that work with Kwido, an effort is made to keep the content updated and personalised according to the needs and tastes of each person, sharing with the elderly what really motivates, connects and entertains them. 

Of course, to accomplish this task it is essential to know each individual, and here family and friends play a crucial role, who can also contribute by adding content. In this way, the work is shared between formal and informal carers and family members, and the tools are provided in a feedback manner so that both are in a position to contribute their bit to the achievement of healthy ageing for the elderly. All of this is complemented by Kwido Home, but perhaps we can talk about this on another occasion. 

Iñaki has made me understand that "technology will be one more piece of a global strategy focused on giving meaning to the lives of the elderly". But for it to fulfil its function, the fallacy of the "digital divide" that is often associated with the elderly must first be banished. This is an excuse for institutions to refuse to try new solutions to old problems and legitimises continuing to do things "as they have always been done", even if this neglect jeopardises the objective of ensuring dignified ageing. Technology can be made accessible as long as it is backed by people interested in humanising relationships between individuals. Will it also be at the forefront of solutions to eradicate boredom in the elderly?