Keeping connected through Connected Living

BY 

This year’s National Assisted Living Week runs from Sept. 11-17, and the theme is “Keep Connected.” It’s a fitting choice, as helping seniors forge new connections and maintain those that already exist is a crucial element of high-quality senior care. Providers across the country are investing in programs that encourage residents to stay connected, making for happier and healthier seniors.

The theme recognizes the increasing opportunity to use technology to better the lives of seniors and the pivotal role it can play in keeping them connected. Not only do tools like Skype and Facebook make it easier than ever for seniors to maintain connections with friends and family members, apps and programs can be used to connect residents with their memories and with one another through shared experience.

One such tool is Connected Living, a national company based in Massachusetts that offers a range of technology-based solutions to promote social connection. These provide one point of entry for seniors to share photos, see events in their locale, communicate with one another and more. For several years, the Wingate community has partnered with Connected Living to offer residents a web-based communication platform, as well as a range of interactive programs that use technology to reinvigorate seniors’ lived experiences.

Multimedia discussion groups led by one of their ambassadors provide an avenue for residents to learn about the technology they’re using to connect with family members and friends, as well as a way to engage with their community. The groups link participants, allowing them to forge bonds with one another out of shared memories and passions. But they also empower residents to rediscover their own memories and to connect with the past.

When we think of connection, we often think of the relationships we have with one another, and there’s no doubt these are important. But maintaining a relationship with ourselves is what makes programs like these invaluable. Stimulating memory recall helps reinforce our sense of self and improve cognitive function by strengthening neural pathways.

For example, we recently hosted presentations on the Golden Age of Radio and the smash hit musical “Oklahoma!” Our residents relished the connections they made, because hearing a refrain from “Oh, What a Beautiful Morning” may remind them of the first time they saw “Oklahoma!” in a theater. To hear an old-style radio show evokes the joy they felt listening to the radio with their family after dinner, or helps them to remember their favorite show.

We’re proud to observe National Assisted Living Week and to help our residents ‘keep connected’ – with their friends, their families, their communities and, perhaps above all else, with themselves.

ANGELA HEBERT is the campus administrator at Wingate Residences on Blackstone Boulevard.