Making friends doesn't have to be difficult, but it can be an intimidating endeavor for people of any age.
Older adults may find it particularly daunting, especially if they have become isolated as the years have passed. At the same time, continued socialization is extremely important to a senior’s health and well-being.
Fortunately, there are many opportunities for seniors to meet other people their age, and in many cases you can help just by pointing them in the right direction.
Here are a few simple things to do to help your older loved ones make new friends.
When helping your loved one make new friends, it’s best to focus on their local area. That way, it’s easy to arrange later meetings.
Fortunately, their local city, town, or even neighborhood is likely to have a number of occasional festivals, farmers markets, concerts, lectures and/or shows.
If you find such opportunities lacking, don’t let it get in the way. You can help coordinate simple local activities – such as volunteering.
By getting yourself and your loved ones involved in the local community, they’ll easily make friends — and you may too.
Send your loved ones on a group tour to another city, or perhaps even another country. Your loved ones will connect easily with the other people on the tour — particularly if it’s a tour geared toward older adults — while forming enduring memories.
After the trip, your loved ones may come away not only with new friends, but a set of shared experiences that will help them reconnect with each other when the trip is over.
Your loved ones naturally have a number of interests that could be developed further with classes, whether it’s studying a foreign language, or improving their computer skills.
Continuing education is also a great way to make friends and bond with them over common interests. Language classes in particular usually involve some kind of required interaction in the target language, which will open up even the shyest seniors to new friends and experiences.
Gyms — particularly in the middle of the weekday — are often full of seniors and can provide an opportunity to meet and make new friends.
Buy your loved ones a gym membership, and they can even take part in yoga or aerobic classes specifically targeting for seniors.
Of course, exercising can also make them feel healthier and better about themselves, and this in turn can increase confidence and make them more naturally outgoing.
Older adults love parties as much as anyone else, but they can be difficult to organize. You can help them by putting together a party. You can do all the legwork and offer support, while they focus on entertaining and hosting the guests.
If their circle of friends is small, you can keep the invitations open — or ask everyone to bring one or more guests. The bigger the party, the more chances there will be to meet new people.
Losing one’s vision makes even simple, necessary activities more difficult. That doesn’t mean, though, that seniors with poor vision can’t still find ways to have fun.
Here are 10 suggestions for how you can keep your loved ones active and engaged, even if they can’t see as well as they used to.
Word and trivia games can be a great way to pass the time and keep the mind engaged, even if it’s difficult to see.
Classic games like Trivial Pursuit work perfectly here — you can play with the board (if you’re there to guide your loved one’s pieces) or just by reading the cards.
If you’re loved one is good with his or her hands, they can still enjoy activities like knitting and crocheting if they are already well-versed in these activities. Just get them started with the basic hand placement, and guide them during key transitions.
Some woodworking can be dangerous, but seniors can still construct basic structures with wood and glue, or, if they’re more experienced, with simple, controlled whittling activities.
If your loved one enjoys exercise, she or he can still enjoy exercising on a stationary bike or other simple home exercise equipment. This way, they don’t need to worry about watching out for things like traffic and cracks in the sidewalk.
Seniors who have trouble seeing can still enjoy cooking and baking, especially if you’re there to help them read the recipes.
It’s helpful if you can arrange the ingredients beforehand and manage some of the initial preparation.
For people who enjoy reading, audio books can be a great option. Seniors can enjoy the latest fiction, non-fiction, or even old favorites.
These days it’s also relatively easy to find old serial radio dramas from the ’40s and ’50s. Listening to these together with your loved ones can be a great way to connect with their past.
Seniors don’t have to give up on making art just because it’s gotten a bit harder to see. For seniors with poor vision, though, it may be better to focus on something in a large format.
Collages, in particular, can be a great way to make art by cutting out large pictures from magazines or catalogues.
Many games — particularly classic ones like Parcheesi, Checkers and Chess — come in large-scale or large-print versions that make them easy to play.
There are also tactile versions, which are printed with Braille or some other easily recognizable pattern, which can be played just with touch.
Seniors often still enjoy expressing their opinion about political subjects or other areas of controversy.
Setting up a structured debate, then, can be a great way to help them engage their minds, and give them an opportunity to speak out on a particular issue.
Many seniors may also enjoy playing ‘Devil’s Advocate’ and arguing for the side they disagree with.
Many universities or other local community centers will regularly host open lectures that anyone can attend.
Seniors with low vision may enjoy the opportunity to hear experts speak, and it can be a great chance to learn and develop their thinking or opinions.
Listening to music, of course, is a great activity that anyone can enjoy — and, as it in no way requires vision to enjoy, it can be particularly suited to seniors with poor vision.
Ask your loved one to play some of his or her old favorites, or see if they’re interested in hearing some of yours.
When you want to make someone feel appreciated, few things beat a nice gift — particularly if it’s homemade.
This doesn't have to be difficult, though. Here are 10 ideas for easy handmade gifts that will make your grandma or grandpa’s day.
Sometimes making a handmade present is more about personalizing something that you can buy in some more basic form.
Most people use calendars every day. Personalize a calendar with pictures, colors, or special messages for your grandpa and grandma. They’ll get a daily reminder of how much you care about them, every time they look at it.
Look for a simple, white calendar to customize, or try to find a calendar that’s designed for just this kind of personalization.
If your loved ones are golfers, it’s easy to take a set of simple, plain white golf tees and paint them for an extra spot of color and personality.
Pick your loved one’s favorite sports team or school colors, or else find some color that will be meaningful to your loved one.
If your loved one is reader, making a bookmark can be a great way to “insert” yourself into their favorite activity!
Add your grandparent’s favorite quote — or a quote that you want to share — to make the gift an even more special reading aide.
Digital tools offer a new take on the age-old art of making homemade gifts. With the help of technology, you may even be able to make something that looks very professional.
If you’re good with graphics software like Photoshop — or even a simpler graphics tool — you can easily make a collage out of images and pictures from your life.
Have a printing service print this out as a high quality poster so your loved one can hang it on his or her wall.
For a simpler take on digital scrapbooking, try making a digital photo album. If you have a Mac, this capability will be built right into iPhoto — including the printing service — but there are any number of cheap software packages out there for all platforms.
You can have these printed in a number of formats, including paperback or hardback books, calendars, or even notebooks, so that it can serve as a memorable keepsake in any number of places and ways.
3D printing is a new technology that prints out 3D digital files as small sculptures or keepsakes. While 3D printers can be quite expensive, a number of online services exist to help you print out anything you could imagine in any number of materials, including metals.
Some popular choices include cuff links or jewelry, but the customization options are limitless. The one caveat is that you may find a learning curve in creating the digital files.
If you want keep it simple and heartfelt, you might consider some simple, old-fashioned gifts.
Sometimes, nothing is more comforting than eating homemade cookies or sweets. If you have a gift for baking, whip up a batch of cookies, brownies, or a cake to make your loved one’s day.
Finally, a simple, heartfelt letter — preferably handwritten — may mean more to your grandma or grandpa than any of the above. Simply approach the task with sincerity and interest, and you’ll give them something they’ll re-read and treasure.
Keeping the house clean can be a demanding task for people of any age — and the need to do it doesn’t stop just because one gets older.
That said, housekeeping is not without its share of surprising and unexpected shortcuts. Here are ten that are especially suited to your elderly loved ones.
Your loved ones may have accumulated a number of artworks over the course of their lives. But these are not always easy to clean, and your loved ones fear inadvertently damaging them.
For a simple cleaning solution, though, the white doughy inner part of a loaf of bread can work well. Simply remove the crust and pat the painting down gently.
Cleaning up broken glass can be especially difficult for aged eyes. Fortunately, spare pieces of bread can help here, too.
Just take pieces of bread and wad them together. Use these to press down on the area where the glass was broken. The broken pieces will stick to the bread, and can then be safely disposed of.
For many seniors, the garbage disposal becomes a key tool in managing kitchen waste: it’s by far the easiest way to get rid of unwanted food. Though over time the disposal may become gummed up with grease and other byproducts.
In order to break this down, simply feed ice cubes into the disposal, and run it with some cold water. You can also freshen up the smell by adding in the peels from citrus fruits like oranges.
Perhaps no cleaning tool is more useful than the sponge. Unfortunately, a used sponge is also a breeding ground for bacteria.
Rather than throw the sponge away, though, try microwaving it for three minutes at the end of every day. The sponge will be a little hot (be careful) but also be germ-free.
If your loved one has a marble tabletop, there’s a simple way to keep it looking clean and new, and to protect it from stains.
Simply wipe it down with some car polish. This will protect the marble with a thin invisible film.
Even if your loved one does a good job of taking old food out of the refrigerator, he or she may find it starts to smell over time. This is especially true of refrigerators that have been used for many years.
To get rid of old smells, just put some coffee grounds in an open bowl, and place them on the refrigerator shelf. Replace it every two months. This absorbs the smells, and gives the refrigerator the pleasant aroma of coffee.
The bathroom can be a dangerous place, but one that seniors usually need to navigate on their own. It’s important, then, for them to keep it clean and easy-to-use.
A dry bar of soap, when rubbed across the surface of a mirror, can keep it from steaming up. Just rub the dry soap residue in with a dry cloth. Make sure to repeat at regular intervals.
Cleaning toilets properly sometimes requires a little elbow grease, which may be tiring or difficult for older adults to apply.
There are ways to make it easier, though. Old, flat Pepsi or Coca-Cola, when poured into the toilet, can help break down the grime.
Does your loved one have trouble with ants? He or she may not need special traps for them if the pests are coming in from the outside.
Simply draw a line of chalk across the ground where the ants are accustomed to coming in. This is usually enough to deter the insects from crossing over.
Spiders and other insects may take refuge in your loved ones’ shoes or rain boots, especially if they’re left in a mudroom, garage, or other space close to the outside.
To keep them out, try putting stockings or socks over their openings. An elastic bag can help hold it down.
Pet therapy, sometimes called Animal Assisted Therapy, can offer seniors a number of physical, emotional, and mental benefits, and has been used as a general therapeutic tool at least as far back as Florence Nightingale.
After only 15 minutes with an animal, seniors have shown lower levels of the stress hormone cortisol and elevated levels of serotonin, a neurotransmitter responsible for giving us a sense of well-being. Spending time with animals on a consistent basis also helps increase the production of dopamine, another neurotransmitter that promotes and regulates feelings of pleasure and happiness.
These feel-good chemicals can thereby reduce stress and help prevent depression, all while reducing general feelings of loneliness. Such chemicals not only improve mood, but promote cardiovascular functioning by lowering heart rate and blood pressure.
The presence of pets can also help establish a calm and reassuring atmosphere, one particularly beneficial to those with Alzheimer's disease or dementia. In many cases, pets can make it easier for such patients to cope with feelings of agitation.
Pets can be particularly helpful at the end of the day, when so-called "Sundowner's Syndrome," can cause patients to experience exceptionally strong feelings of agitation or confusion.
Having pets around can bring a number of indirect benefits as well.
Dogs need walking, which can give your loved ones an opportunity to take part in cardiovascular exercise. They also need feeding, brushing, and other forms of care, all of which promote general activity and a sense of being needed.
The actual practice of pet therapy can vary significantly and will depend on the circumstances.
Pet-owning seniors who live in the community can be said to be participating in pet therapy.
Often, though, pet therapy implies situations where a handler brings a pet — usually a dog — to a senior’s residence in a facility or in a hospital, so that he or she can spend some time interacting with it. Visits often last for 10-15 minutes but can go longer, especially for group sessions.
In some cases, seniors themselves are trained to be handlers, which has the double benefit of increasing their time with the pet, while extending the reach of pet therapy in a community.
When evaluating pet therapy, it’s important to make sure that pets are properly handled. Pet-friendly residential facilities often provide good support for pet care.
It may be important to check, however, that seniors living alone or in the community are able to care for their pets properly. Not only is this important for the pet, but neglected animals can become increasingly difficult to handle, undermining the therapeutic aims of pet care and ownership.