A/HRC/45/14/Add.2 111. Noting that older prisoners have a greater incidence of illness, disease, disability and mental health diagnoses than their younger counterparts, the Independent Expert stresses the need to ensure access to age-sensitive health and care services in prisons. 112. The Independent Expert encourages the Government to step up its investment in geriatric medicine, as older persons have different patterns of disease presentation than younger adults and therefore respond differently to treatments and therapies. In addition, older persons frequently have complex social needs, related to their cognitive and chronic medical conditions. Given the growing number of older patients, the basics of geriatrics and gerontology, and how to interact with older patients, should become part of all medical professional training and pursue a biopsychosocial cultural approach. It is essential to ensure that the different categories of health professionals, caregivers and community members are sensitized to the specific needs of older persons and receive adequate training in geriatrics and gerontology, and that policies and guidelines are developed on the care of older persons. 113. The Independent Expert notes the need to meet the increasing demand for palliative care as a matter of priority and stresses the importance of improving patient awareness, accessibility of services, and adequate training for health-care professionals. Moreover, she stresses the need to focus its efforts particularly on ensuring that all patients are actually receiving adequate levels of quality palliative care. Digitalization, artificial intelligence and robotics technology 114. The Independent Expert notes the potential of progressively available digitalization to meet the needs of older persons in a variety of sectors, including health and care services. Acknowledging the Government’s efforts, the Independent Expert stresses the need to ensure the digital inclusion of older persons, including older persons from communities that lack connectivity and tend to face higher barriers to accessing technology. 115. With reference to the findings and recommendations in her thematic report (A/HRC/36/48), which examines the impact of assistive technologies, robotics, artificial intelligence and automation on the fundamental rights of older persons, the Independent Expert notes that the use of assistive and robotics technology raises a number of issues, ranging from ethics to accountability, lack of technological accuracy, data protection, data sovereignty, informational self-determination and informed consent, particularly for older persons. These implications have to be studied in detail. Normative frameworks and appropriate mechanisms may need to be designed to ensure that their utilization conforms to human rights principles. She stresses the need to ensure that the collection, retention and use of data is regulated in law and in practice. 69 Moreover, she encourages the Government to ensure that therapeutic devices and applications are appropriately regulated for safety and to develop the capacity to assess and approve the safety and effectiveness of technologies to avoid a regulatory backlog. 116. The use of autonomous health-care robots (“carebots”) requires a more general discussion on what care actually implies in practice, whether it is service delivery or whether it embeds certain values, and on how to ensure that older persons are not objectified. The Independent Expert recommends that a human rights impact assessment of social and care robots be conducted with the involvement of older persons, including the older old, and taking into account the range of old-age diversity. Technically, the sample of older persons participating in such a human rights impact 69 See the guidelines for the regulation of computerized personal data files; and OHCHR, “A human rights-based approach to data: leaving no one behind in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development”, 2018. 19