Mobile and wearable technologies for persons with disabilities: a bibliometric analysis (2000–2021)

Abstract

Purpose

This study uses a bibliometric approach to analyse the patterns in research related to mobile and wearable technologies for persons with disabilities to evaluate the current state of relevant research.

Materials and methods

A systematic search was done using two strings covering “disability” and “mobile and wearable technologies” in the titles of publications in the Web of Science database. Two researchers independently screened the results for relevant publications. During this process, the inclusion and exclusion criteria were deliberated and refined. An independent researcher checked the screening results against the finalized inclusion and exclusion criteria to ensure that the screening was done consistently.

Results

A total of 2012 out of the 5990 retrieved publications from 2000 to 2022 were included for further analysis. We observed that publications in this area grew exponentially since 2011, almost doubling every 2 years between 2011 and 2015. Universities in the USA were the most active and prominent in relevant publications. Autism is the most researched disability in relation to mobile and wearable technologies. The publications cover both hardware (engineering, electrical and electronic) and software (computer science, theory and methods) technologies used for improving quality of life for persons with disabilities (rehabilitation).

Conclusions

The majority of publications were from high income countries, indicating the need to study the digital divide among high-, low- and middle-income countries in adopting mobile and wearable technologies for persons with disabilities, especially ways of making these technologies more affordable and accessible to the under-privileged members of the community.

Implications for rehabilitation

• Mobile and wearable technologies as a more generic, available and affordable approach complementing more specialized assistive technologies for persons with disabilities.

• A bibliometric study illustrates the trend in research of mobile and wearable technologies for persons with disabilities, and of the relevant publications.

• Through this bibliometric study, rehabilitation practitioners can identify the key researchers, universities and countries contributing to relevant publications, for potential collaboration as well as implementation of rehabilitation solutions for persons with disabilities.

• The identified main journals and anchor publications in relevant fields of research allow rehabilitation researchers to focus on topics that have attracted much interest among the stakeholders as well as topics that are still under-researched, hence identifying gaps in research.

Keywords:

• Mobile technologies
• wearable technologies
• disabilities
• bibliometric

Disclosure statement

The authors report no conflict of interest.

Notes

1 PRISMA. Available online: https://www.prisma-statement.org//Default.aspx

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by Universiti Malaya, Malaysia under the Presidents’ Forum of Southeast Asia and Taiwan Universities Research Grant [ST021-2020] – Physical Activity Mobile App for Persons with Physical Disability.