Conventor of track: 29. Technology, Innovation and Images of Health and Aging

Abstract

Demographic aging is among the most striking societal changes advanced societies face today. It is clear that aging poses social care and public health systems with severe challenges, but also that aging market places ask for changes in current practices of technology and innovation. Older adults will become an increasingly important consumer group for a number of everyday technologies and consumer electronics. New solutions are sought to tackle the problems in health and social care systems, thus evoking images of more sustainable health systems including innovation in pharmaceuticals and medical technologies. And finally, with, for instance, e-government becoming more relevant, the problems that many older adults experience with new technologies are likely to translate into more fundamental problems of societal and political participation thus exacerbating the so-called ‘digital divide.