Glossary: Demographic timebomb

The trend in most of the world's developed countries to an increase in the percentage of dependent elderly where even today's levels of medical and carer attention is both unaffordable and unobtainable, so the elderly will have to use much more technology to be more independent. An example will be medication delivered automatically against monitored need with performance automatically recorded. Another will be a dramatic improvement in the human interface with packages that prompt and inform visually and audibly, wallpaper television and moving colour advertisements on disposable packaging. Most of this will only be technically and economically feasible with printed electronics.