Assessment of touchscreen manipulation skills is essential for determining the abilities of older individuals and the extent to which they may benefit from this technology as a means to enhance participation, self-esteem, and quality of life. The aim of this study was to compare the touchscreen manipulation ability between community-dwelling older adults and middle-aged adults using a newly developed Touchscreen Assessment Tool (TATOO) and to determine the usability of this instrument. Convenience samples of two age groups were considered, one including 28 independent community-living older adults aged 81.9 ± 4.2 years with intact or corrected vision and with the abilities to walk independently with or without a walking aid and to understand and follow simple commands, and the other including 25 healthy middle-age adults aged 53.4 ± 5.9 years. The usability assessment was conducted during a single session using the System Usability Scale (SUS). Older adults demonstrated poorer touchscreen skills compared to middle-aged adults. Previous experience in manipulating a smartphone by the older adults did not affect their performance. The SUS results indicated good usability of the TATOO by both age groups. The TATOO shows promise as a user-friendly tool for assessing the specific skills needed to operate touchscreens. The outcomes of this study support the suitability of touchscreen devices and applications as well as the need for adapted accessibility for older adults. Researchers and clinicians will benefit from the availability of a rapid, low-cost, and objective tool to assess the skills required for touchscreen use.

The COVID-19 presented an unexpected event that had an immediate effect on education systems. Teachers had to make a sudden shift in their practice and adjust to this surprising and uncontrollable event. The present study explored teachers’ reactions to the COVID-19 in terms of their stress response, focusing on the possible differences between Jewish and Arab teachers in Israel due to their cultural background. Nine hundred twenty-nine teachers (484 Jewish and 445 Arab teachers) completed an online survey. Using a mixed method design with a survey that included both closed and open-ended questions. Data analysis revealed that teachers in Israel were moderately stressed during this period, with Arab teachers reporting significantly higher levels of stress than did Jewish teachers. Jewish teachers were stressed mainly by personal stressors, whereas Arab teachers were stressed mainly by factors related to their professional role and by environmental factors. Arab teachers were more concerned with the reactions of school principals, Ministry of Education, and the general public than Jewish teachers, who were more concerned with uncertainty regarding the present and the future. Potential implications of the study address the importance of adapting differential solutions to support teachers according to cultural, social, and personal characteristics.

Aims: Aging populations require adapting healthcare systems for older adult's specific needs. Numerous initiatives to improve older‐patient care have emerged, but the field lacks a unified framework. The current study aims to provide a systematic concept analysis of ‘age‐friendly healthcare’, examining its characteristics, components and structure.Design: Rodger's evolutionary concept analysis.Data Sources: Searches were conducted in ProQuest, CINAHL, PubMed and Scopus databases between November 2022 and October 2023, utilising the PRISMA 2020 reporting checklist.Methods: A literature search using specific terms relevant to age‐friendly healthcare retrieved 1407 articles. After screening for duplicates and relevance, 140 articles were examined for eligibility based on inclusion criteria for age‐friendly care, language and full‐text availability. Following full‐text screening, 65 articles were included for data extraction by multiple researchers to synthesise theoretical, methodological and design elements.Results: Our findings highlight key attributes of age‐friendly healthcare: Respect for older adults' autonomy and needs; leadership and organisational knowledge and support; Proactive policies and processes of care; holistic care environments; and communication and follow‐up with awareness of challenges and barriers as well as prioritisation of continuity‐of‐care.Conclusion: The concept of age‐friendly healthcare is still developing, with much research focused on development and implementation rather than evaluation of real‐world patient and health‐system outcomes. Our analysis of the concept may help unify the field and clarify future research directions through identification of areas requiring further study and enable development of improved practices and policies for implementing age‐friendly healthcare in a variety of settings.No Patient or Public Contribution: This concept analysis did not include any patient or public involvement.Reporting Method: This study utilised the PRISMA reporting checklist.

Information regarding the relationship between the degree of hand function among the elderly as measured by traditional assessments and the ability to manipulate touchscreens is lacking. This study aimed to examine the correlation between the ability to manipulate a touchscreen device, as assessed using the touchscreen assessment tool (TATOO) (University of Haifa, Israel & Universetiy of Bologna, Italy), and hand strength and manual dexterity among independent community-living older individuals. Thirty-four community-living older adults (average age 79.4 ± 6.7 years) participated in single-session assessments lasting 45 min each. The assessment included hand strength measurement using the manual hand dynamometry and hydraulic pinch gauge, a functional dexterity test (FDT), and TATOO. No significant correlations were observed between most of the TATOO items (22 out of 26) and handgrip strength, pinch strength, and FDT results. Moderately significant correlations were demonstrated between the number of drag attempts in the “Drag to different directions” task and handgrip strength and manual dexterity (r value: −0.39, p value: 0.02; r value: 0.36, p value: 0.04, respectively). In addition, a moderately significant correlation was noted between the number of double taps and manual dexterity (r value: 0.32, p value: 0.07). These results indicate that more complex gestures that require greater accuracy (dragging task) or rapid movements (double tapping) are related to hand strength and manual dexterity. These results suggest that the manual gestures necessary for touchscreen operation entail unique and specific capabilities that are generally not captured by traditional tools. The clinical implication is that the hand function assessment toolbox should be expanded. Tools such as the TATOO should be used to capture skills required for touchscreen manipulation in the context of the modern digital milieu.

Aim: The aim of this study was to describe the processes of reaching consensus regarding the assessment of the user’s skills required to operate various touch screen devices. A five-step procedure was used to collect and validate the required skills by a multidisciplinary team of 52 experts. Content validity was calculated to determine the agreement levels between the experts. A comparison was made between the discipline groups in order to test correlation between each group and their choice of specific clusters of tasks. Methods: The final consensus set by the experts' recommendations included 15 domains and 50 skills/measurements. The result of Cronbach's α test for the final assessment questionnaire (50 skills/measurements) was 0.94, which indicates a high degree of internal consistency. The results of Kruskal–Wallis’s test showed the lack of any significant difference between agreements of the clinicians and the technicians groups, but significant differences were found between the educators and the clinicians groups. Conclusion: The assessment questionnaire, in its current form, can be used by clinicians and it is expected to help in developing an objective assessment tool to quantify the performance and touch characteristics of individuals with varying abilities and disabilities, in order to enhance accessibility of touch screen technology.