Applications of Emerging Digital Technologies to Address Health Needs of People with Intellectual Disability: A Scoping Review of the Past Decade

Background: People with intellectual disability experience higher rates of multi-morbidity, preventable deaths, and barriers to healthcare access compared to the general population. Emerging digital technologies have been identified as potential tools to address these healthcare disparities, but evidence examining their application, effectiveness, and feasibility for people with intellectual disability remains fragmented across multiple disciplines.Objective: To examine applications of emerging digital technologies for health outcomes in people with intellectual disability and evaluate evidence for their effectiveness and feasibility across health domains.Design: Scoping review conducted following Joanna Briggs Institute guidelines. Method: Systematic searches were conducted across PsycINFO, PubMed, and IEEE Xplore databases in June 2025. Studies were included if they reported on emerging digital technologies (excluding telehealth) used to support health outcomes for people with intellectual disability, presented quantitative or qualitative data, and were published from 2015-2025. Results: Thirty-six studies were included, spanning seven health domains. Physical activity and motor skills were the most frequently addressed domains, whilst healthcare access and mental health remained underexplored. Technologies included gaming consoles, head-mounted displays, mobile applications, and augmented and mixed reality technology. Most interventions reported improvements on primary outcome measures including physical fitness, balance, anxiety reduction, and skill acquisition. Minor adverse effects including motion sickness and equipment discomfort were noted in some studies. Most interventions required continuous support during use and were delivered in institutional settings rather than home or community contexts. Only eight studies involved people with intellectual disability in intervention development. Conclusion: Emerging digital technologies demonstrate feasibility and safety for people with intellectual disability across multiple health domains. Research to date has focused on physical health applications using readily available consumer technologies. Future research should expand to healthcare access and mental health interventions, involve people with intellectual disability as partners in co-design processes, and demonstrate pathways to independent use in home and community settings to address documented health disparities.