Will The Internet Improve Eldercare? Many people become isolated as they age, due to the multiple diseases and disabilities that sometimes accompany the aging process and the resulting problems getting around or accessing transportation. This isolation can lead to declining physical and mental health. The resulting loneliness may also contribute to the all too familiar stories about older people who have been duped into writing checks for "loans" to friendly strangers or responding to slick pitches for non-existent or unnecessary products and services.
Sometimes the elderly are geographically removed from their children. A recent study by the National Council on Aging estimates there are nearly seven million adult children who live an hour or more away from the parents they are caring for. These adult children can't easily monitor the quality of care which is given, prevent strangers from exerting undue influence over their parents, or tell whether their parents are truly healthy, safe, and secure. That distance contributes to their worry, and to their guilt.
The Internet is playing an emerging role in mitigating some of the problems relating to caring for the frail elderly, by reducing the impact of distance and geography:
- It can serve as a tool to connect isolated seniors to the world around them.
- It can provide elders with easy access to health and care information from their home, on demand, at sites like the WellnessWeb and Eldercare Web.
- It can connect elders to sites which provide them with entertainment and recreation, and provide a forum for social interaction with others who are isolated at places like The Third Age and Senior Com.
- It can help home-bound seniors continue to contribute to society through the development of personal sites which make their expertise available to others. For example, Food and Life is written by Rosemary Fisher, a 79 year old woman who says she has been able to reverse her own osteoporosis through diet and help her husband to reverse his heart disease and fight dementia through diet.
- It can provide caregivers with information about aging services in all parts of the country, information that is available any time of the day or night, regardless of the time zone of either the child or the parent. Eldercare Web is one site that provides this information.
- It can serve as a vehicle for caregivers and healthcare professionals to easily stay in contact with elderly people who remain in their own homes, through e-mail, chat groups, "telephony", or even video applications.
- It can make lifelong learning possible through distance education provided by hundreds of university sites.
- It can develop new relationships, such as mentoring and intergenerational connections. The Service Corps of Retired Executives (SCORE) provides volunteer opportunities for retired executives to counsel businesses, and Generations United is part of a national network of intergenerational sites developing programs where seniors help young people and vice versa.
To make these things possible, more seniors need to be connected to, and comfortable using, the Internet. They will need the proper equipment, configured to adapt to their handicaps or impairments. They will need training on how to use the equipment and Web tools effectively. There are a number of studies and on-line initiatives to do this, such as the Senior's Computer Information Project and SeniorNet.
We've just scratched the surface. As the collective creativity of the people connected to the Web continues to grow, we'll see even more ways to tap into this new resource.