Listening to professors talk about computers and the elderly. For the past 2 Thursdays, I've listened to ASA webinars with two professors from Pace University talking about their 'intergenerational computing gerontechnology program' -- fine-tuned over time to engage college students at Pace University in technology service-learning projects. These involve training older adults -- many in nursing homes -- to use computers for-mail, photo attachments, video chat, web searching and online shopping. Professors Jean Coppola and Barbara Thomas conducted grant-funded research studies around these semester-long training programs (ratio of 1 student to 2 seniors) to assess changes in both the seniors and in the attitudes towards aging of the students. The curriculum they have developed and outcome measurements includes both the age sensitivity training for the college students as well as outcome measures of older adult participants. For seniors, measured outcomes included improved motor skills, self-confidence, eye-hand coordination, and reduction in depression and tendencies towards isolation.
Study: Maintaining social relationships and mobility in old age are so important for general well-being that some will go to extreme lengths to keep active.
Hype alert -- for senior housing residents -- iPads may both amaze and confound. Caution -- this is not a review, even though I have a brightly lit iPad next to me as I write this text on a PC. I still love my PC because I've become fond its high feedback QWERTY keyboard with its easy-to-find punctuation, mouse access to grabbing text and URLs easily, and other conveniences that have rather grown on me over the years. I admit to loving the iPad for reading a book, as a home music streamer, watching a movie on a plane, looking at my street from a satellite, and examining news sites. But this is not about me. This is about the use of an iPad in senior housing settings. For example, check out this video made by a Colorado news station that shows an iPad tutorial for the over-88 senior housing residents -- which I just watched for the third time.
