Looking for the unusual: how older adults utilize self-tracking techniques for health management

Self-tracking applications for health management have become popular both in industry and in academia. Half of older adults in the U.S. track health indicators, but they rarely use technology for that purpose. We conduct a qualitative study to investigate older adults' self-tracking practices in order to understand their needs as potential users of self-tracking technology. Our data indicates that monitoring the onset of abnormal changes in health is a primary reason for tracking for this population. This finding suggests that self-tracking technology that targets elderly users must assist them to identify changes in health condition.