Musings

Reflections on life lived by a coast

  • Home
  • Travel
  • Yoga
You are here: Home / Back to Basics / Seniors Deserve Better Options

Seniors Deserve Better Options

January 21, 2014 •

Photos of seniors in a coffee shop with a tabletMy 87-year-old father was house­bound today. Arc­tic cold and an immi­nent bliz­zard had caused his favorite weekly meet­ings to be can­celled for sev­eral days in a row.

For most peo­ple this would­n’t be a big deal. Our lives are full of activ­i­ties: work or fam­ily com­mit­ments, social inter­ac­tions, exer­cise, fun, vol­un­teer work — all the things that keep us happy, stim­u­lated and focused out­wardly. If bored, we can go for a drive, head to the mall or take in a movie.

But these can­cel­la­tions are a huge dis­ap­point­ment for my father, now liv­ing by him­self since my mother died six months ago. He no longer dri­ves at night, and lives 20–30 min­utes away from the clos­est city (an hour-plus to Boston, which is largely out of reach these days.) Leav­ing home for social con­tact in a cof­fee shop is a big deal, which largely con­strains him to a breakfast/sandwich shop a cou­ple of miles away.

Mac­u­lar degen­er­a­tion pre­vents him from read­ing the Boston Globe or library books the way he used to on snow­bound days.

He’s lonely, com­pared to his for­mer life, but not truly alone.

He is blessed with many chil­dren and grand­chil­dren, some of whom live nearby. His nearby fam­ily mem­bers are extremely gen­er­ous with their time and atten­tion to his well-being. He sees one daugh­ter almost daily, and has fre­quent in-per­son con­tact with other local fam­ily mem­bers. Those of us who live thou­sands of miles away stay in touch by phone, email or Face­book, or the occa­sional Skype video chat.

Lonely, Coping with Silence

Com­pared to many elders, Dad is not alone or iso­lated, if you look at things from a fac­tual or ratio­nal basis.

But his emo­tional truth says oth­er­wise. He’s lonely, and may go hours with­out hear­ing the sound of another human voice. My sis­ter’s aging dog is his most fre­quent com­pan­ion dur­ing the day.

He lives alone, in a sep­a­rate house­hold on my sis­ter’s prop­erty out in the coun­try. My par­ents moved there when they were no longer able to live inde­pen­dently in their own home. His liv­ing quar­ters are spa­cious, but he is a 20-minute drive from the town where he spent the past 40-some­thing years of his life. There’s no one within walk­ing dis­tance to talk to, dur­ing day­time hours when his chil­dren and grand­chil­dren are away at work or attend­ing classes. This win­ter he is cop­ing with “cabin fever.”

He is starved for what he thinks of as intel­lec­tual con­ver­sa­tion: chances to talk about a movie, last week’s ser­mon at church, an Obama speech, or a book he is read­ing on his Kin­dle. He finds few occa­sions to share moments of cre­ativ­ity (a new poem, a favorite photo or a spe­cial prayer, a child­hood mem­ory writ­ten down as a story). Con­ver­sa­tion and laugh­ter — things that were easy when his wife was alive — are no longer sim­ple, and rarely spon­ta­neous.

Social Technology for Seniors

Unlike most senior cit­i­zens who came of age dur­ing World War II, Dad is pretty tech savvy. He started using a com­puter in his early six­ties, and has twenty years of hands-on expe­ri­ence as a Mac user.

As a com­puter-savvy senior, he believed he could eas­ily find a web-based solu­tion for social inter­ac­tions with other house­bound seniors. So he spent yes­ter­day online, look­ing for prac­ti­cal senior-friendly solu­tions.

His mis­sion was to find an afford­able online ser­vice that would enable his church group mem­bers to meet vir­tu­ally on days when weather or med­ical appoint­ment con­flicts pre­vent face-to-face group meet­ings. He’d heard about WebEx, and had pre­vi­ously used Adobe Con­nect at his daugh­ter’s expense. He uses Face­book to stay in touch with grand­chil­dren, so he under­stands what might be pos­si­ble with com­mu­nity plat­forms.

He failed to find any­thing that he thought would meet the needs of his group of seniors…

Senior-friendly Needs

What was he look­ing for? [I’ve trans­lated his require­ments.]

  • An online meet­ing envi­ron­ment that would allow mul­ti­ple peo­ple to talk to each other, and com­ment on what they were see­ing on-screen
  • A meet­ing envi­ron­ment that would enable them to hear each oth­er’s voice in real time, and sup­port a nat­ural con­ver­sa­tion flow
  • A means of tran­scrib­ing or record­ing the con­ver­sa­tion, for peo­ple who can­not attend the orig­i­nal online meet­ing
  • A means of look­ing at, com­ment­ing on, col­lab­o­rat­ing on doc­u­ments, such as a prayer my father had just writ­ten
  • An online place to man­age a stream of com­ments
  • An easy way to find other like-minded peo­ple, inter­ested in talk­ing about sim­i­lar sub­jects
  • A way to man­age group mem­ber­ship and pri­vacy, so groups would­n’t nec­es­sar­ily be open to all-com­ers (for exam­ple, restricted to mem­bers of the same church or senior cen­ter) — a place where they would­n’t feel bul­lied by peo­ple who work at a faster or more aggres­sive pace
  • Keen atten­tion to acces­si­bil­ity, so seniors with hear­ing or vision chal­lenges could adjust the on-screen audio or visual pre­sen­ta­tion
  • Superla­tive usabil­ity for seniors who are far less com­fort­able with com­put­ers than my dad

Not sur­pris­ingly, his search was pretty fruit­less.

Pricing Models Don’t Fit Senior Budgets

Soft­ware that might offer usabil­ity mod­els that would­n’t intim­i­date senior cit­i­zens is gen­er­ally priced for enter­prise bud­gets — way out of reach for seniors liv­ing on retire­ment sav­ings or pal­try pen­sions. Have you ever seen online pric­ing with spe­cial options for senior cit­i­zens or non­prof­its?

The free stuff tended to under­whelm him, due to com­plex­i­ties or usabil­ity gaps. His take was that set-up and sup­port would require on-going help by a tech savvy younger per­son who knows how to talk to his elders with­out being arro­gant or con­de­scend­ing. He lacked con­fi­dence that they could find vol­un­teers will­ing to help a bunch of old­sters like him.

He had a hard time believ­ing his church would be open to even think­ing about spon­sor­ing online meet­ings, for fear it would fur­ther deplete atten­dance by aging con­gre­ga­tions on Sun­day morn­ings. (We chat­ted a bit about dis­rup­tive inno­va­tions, and the fears of pow­er­ful incum­bents… But that’s another story.)

Our Under-served Elders

The irony is, seniors who feel lonely, iso­lated, lack stim­u­la­tion or intel­lec­tual chal­lenge are eas­ily prone to depres­sion or ill­ness. They become vul­ner­a­ble when they lose their sense of well-being or feel they can no longer con­tribute in mean­ing­ful ways to a com­mu­nity.

So they’ll go on yet another set of meds, or decline to the point where they need med­ical inter­ven­tion — which will cost tax­pay­ers even more money to sub­si­dize Medicare and Med­ic­aid.

These are our par­ents and grand­par­ents. Surely they deserve bet­ter.

One day we’ll be in their shoes too… By that time I sure hope soci­ety has fig­ured out ways for seniors to con­nect, to chat, to share — even when house­bound due to bad weather or fail­ing health.

About This Blog

Reflec­tions on life, travel, books, and yoga. Think­ing out loud about the pur­suit of mind­ful­ness and well-being.

Learn­ing how to recover from the loss of a beloved spouse, and then to find a trans­for­ma­tive path for­ward.

About Me

Semi-retired marketing exec, transitioning from a career in high tech. Now "managed" by two Tonkinese cats. Missing travel and friends on the West Coast. Avid reader and foodie. Staying active with long walks, biking, kayaking and yoga.

Recent Posts

  • Wet Sand, Wet Boots, Birds
  • Living with Vintage Items
  • Slowing Down
  • Reflections on My Camino
  • Going Off the Beaten Track in France

© 2020 by Christine Thompson. All rights reserved. • Log in