Blog #5

I used to volunteer for healthcare institutions and a nursing home for more than 7 years, and was always interested in how senior citizens can maintain an active lifestyle. Fortunately or unfortunately, we all get aged and many of us desperately want to live as independently as possible while we are breathing on this earth. At one of the facilities, I found many seniors tried to be physically active, participating in exercise groups and volunteer activities.

When those people are in independent-living units, they can fully rely on their physical capacities. Unfortunately; however, some cannot avoid suffering from a sudden episode of disease (both acute and chronic) and end up living in skilled-nursing units, which significantly limits the residents’ physical activity levels.

Sometimes, I see articles that emphasize an importance of learning technologies for seniors. Not only does those articles emphasize the importance of learning new technologies for stimulating brain activities, but also the technologies (in this case, I will limit the technology to one of typical communication tools, such as SNS and chat app) can help seniors connected to their families and possibly explore new friendships.

It seems that some of the communication app can be good at accommodating those seniors who are handicapped, allowing their users with limited physical capacities to use apps relatively with ease. They may offer larger icons and buttons, so shaky hands can easily select and tap them, and also easy navigation structure for completing tasks. Accessibility has been greatly considered by the developers, which inspires me.