Glencroft Senior Living blog

In this social media era, some of our oldest relatives are getting left out of the baby-picture whirl. I found this with my own mother: While my mom is an avid Facebooker, we would keep ordering up printed pictures for Grandma. And trust me, Grandma wants to see the baby pictures. All of the baby pictures.

The 8-inch, 12.5-ounce GrandPad comes with a wireless charging dock that it sits in and that turns it into a kind of desktop.

The contact books and photo albums are all managed by a caretaking relative with a smartphone, who acts as a sort of gateway between the GrandPad user and the larger internet. All the content gets pushed to the GrandPad through the LTE connection without the user doing anything. Once the caretaker sets up the contact books, though, the GrandPad user can email and call people in it. The tablet can also only be called by people in the contact book, so the caretaker can whitelist doctors, but exclude phone scammers.

The device has powerful, front-facing speakers to act as a speakerphone, and a front-facing camera for video calling. Emails can either be tapped out on an on-screen keyboard, or dictated and sent as voice mails.

The GrandPad isn’t the kind of thing that people buy for themselves; it’s something their relatives buy for them. It’s not for older people who are fine with phones and other tablets—it’s for the technophobic and disconnected.

I can’t think of anything it really competes with. Its success will ultimately come down to whether or not it’s simple enough to appeal to users who are otherwise completely resistant to technology.

Check back for a full review soon.

Thanks everyone for reading

No matter where seniors live, they face the possibility of isolation and loneliness. Too often, a senior finds themselves in a situation where their family lives many miles away and their network of friends has dwindled until they have no one to spend time with. This level isolation can lead to health issues, depression, and even early death.

This means using resources to combat isolation as well as using volunteers to visit seniors or give them a call to help make their day a little better. In addition, the creation of programs that provides activities for seniors to help them get involved and reduce the loneliness they feel.

Do you know of seniors who have benefited from technology to conquer isolation? Have you helped any seniors get a better understanding of programs, apps, and more that’s out there? Let us know in the comments below.  Thank you!

 

Mark, an 82 year-old man, went to the doctor to get a physical.  A few days later the doctor saw Mark walking down the street with a gorgeous young woman on his arm.A couple of days later the doctor spoke to Mark and said, “You’re really doing great, aren’t you?”

Mark replied, “Just doing what you said, Doc: ‘Get a hot mamma and be cheerful.'”
The doctor said, “I didn’t say that. I said, ‘You’ve got a heart murmur. Be careful.'”..ooh!

 

Traditionally, it’s been said that seniors struggle to adapt to new technologies. Yet today, six out of every ten use the Internet. Seventy percent of all senior citizens access the Internet on a daily basis, while a staggering 80 percent use social media to interact with friends, relatives and family members. The extent to which individuals older than 65 years old have adapted to new technologies is extraordinary.

Seniors have adopted new technologies to such an extent that close to 80 percent in the U.S. feel that lack of access to the Internet is a significant disadvantage. More than nine out of every ten seniors acknowledge that the Web has made it easier for them to search for information, while more than 80 percent of seniors feel the ubiquitous smartphone is a great tool that provides them freedom in their old age.

There is a direct correlation between education, income levels and the adoption of new technology. Eighty-seven percent of senior citizens who possess a college degree are comfortable using technology. This figure falls to less than 70 percent for those who have merely attended college. Senior citizens with less than a high school degree readily adopt technology at just a 40 percent rate.

Similarly, 86 percent of seniors residing in households with an annual income between $50,000 and $75,000 have adopted modern technology. Among those earning more than $30,000 but less than $50,000, the adoption rate is 63 percent. This figure falls to less than 40 percent for members of households earning less than $30,000 per year. This indicates that seniors who can afford devices like smartphones, tablets and computers are very comfortable using them.

“The excess of our youth are checks written against our age and they are payable with interest thirty years later.” – Victor Hugo

“The years between 50 and 70 are the hardest. You are always being asked to do things, and yet you are not decrepit enough to turn them down.” – Charles Caleb Colton

“Life would be infinitely happier if we could only be born at the age of 80 and gradually approach age 18.” – T.S. Eliot

“When grace is joined with wrinkes, it is adorable. There is an unspeakable dawn in happy old age.” – Unknown Author

“The best way to get most husbands to do something is to suggest that perhaps they’re too old to do it.”. – Anne Bancroft

“When you become senile, you won’t know it.” -Bill Cosby

“A stockbroker urged me to buy a stock that would triple its value every year. I told him, ‘At my age, I don’t even buy green bananas.’ – Claude Pepper

“He’s so old that when he orders a three-minute egg, they ask for the money up front.” – Milton Berle

“When I was a boy the Dead Sea was only sick.” -George Burns

“I’m so old they’ve cancelled my blood type. ” – Bob Hope

“The really frightening thing about middle age is knowing you’ll grow out of it. ” Doris Day

“Old age isn’t so bad when you consider the alternative. ” – Maurice Chevalier

“You know you’re getting old when the candles cost more than the cake.” – Bob Hope

 

 

Caring for an individual with Alzheimerʼs disease or a related dementia can be challenging and, at times, overwhelming. Frustration is a normal and valid emotional response to many of the difficulties of being a caregiver.

While some irritation may be part of everyday life as a caregiver, feeling extreme frustration can have serious consequences for you or the person you care for. Frustration and stress may negatively impact your physical health or cause you to be physically or verbally aggressive towards your loved one. If your caregiving situation is causing you extreme frustration or anger, you may want to explore some new techniques for coping.

When you are frustrated, it is important to distinguish between what is and what is not within your power to change. Frustration often arises out of trying to change an uncontrollable circumstance. As a caregiver of someone with dementia, you face many uncontrollable situations. Normal daily activities—dressing, bathing, and eating—may become sources of deep frustration for you.

Behaviors often associated with dementia, like wandering or asking questions repeatedly, can be frustrating for caregivers but are uncontrollable behaviors for people with dementia. Unfortunately, you cannot simply change the behavior of a person suffering from dementia.

When dealing with an uncontrollable circumstance, you do control one thing: how you respond to that circumstance.

In order to respond without extreme frustration, you will need to:

• Learn to recognize the warnings signs of frustration.
• Intervene to calm yourself down physically.
• Modify your thoughts in a way that reduces your stress.
• Learn to communicate assertively.
• Learn to ask for help.

 

To that point, YouTube isn’t necessarily a platform you associate with a 50+ audience. If I’m a brand targeting this demographic and I’m not investing heavily in digital marketing, am I making a mistake?

 

Yes, the 50+ audience is much more tech savvy than a lot of marketers give it credit for. Most people don’t realize how multichannel and multi-device this audience is.

 

We take it as our responsibility to lead the way in showing marketers that this audience is online and wants to be reached that way. If marketers don’t understand that, they’re missing a big opportunity to build relevance with a demographic that accounts for 51 cents of every dollar spent by people over 25 in the U.S.

 

This is only going to become truer in the next few years. Take Gen Xers, who everyone knows are engaged online. What most marketers may be forgetting is that the oldest Gen Xers are 53.

 

 

Have digital platforms replaced or added to your traditional marketing strategies?

Shipley: We’re looking for ways to bring the online and offline worlds together to get more views, more shares, and more chatter. So this is not about replacing analog with digital. We’re instead attempting to blend the two so they reinforce one another.

 

For example, after this year’s Super Bowl, we worked with Grey New York on creative and Mediacom on media to run a 30-second spot featuring Grammy-winning spoken word poet J. Ivy. We wanted an ad that would surprise people and really challenge some of the stereotypes of aging. The spoken word approach was perfect for that.

 

But what we really loved was the flexibility it gave us to try out new lengths and varieties of creative. We dedicated a full day to shooting made-for-digital creative, which gave us six-second and 15-second versions we could experiment with.

 

We’re already seeing the approach pay off. For example, our six-second and 15-second AARP ads on YouTube have combined to deliver a 13% lift in brand favorability and a 22% lift in ad recall among people age 45–64 recognize that they’re in an exciting, dynamic time of their lives.

 

It’s an optimistic crowd.

Sometimes marketers make assumptions about this audience because they’re thinking of their grandma. Soon they’re going to realize, “Oh wait, I’m marketing to myself.