How Home Care Specialists from Visiting Angels Annapolis, MD can Help Your Senior Loved One Stay Connected with Social Media

At Visiting Angels, our home care specialists have extensive experience with helping seniors in Annapolis, MD learn how to use social media

Studies have shown that isolation and loneliness can cause many health issues. For example, many seniors who are isolated are at higher risk of physical and cognitive decline than those who are lead active social lives. However, most of the time older adults do not live in isolation by choice. Because of their mobility or health issues, they are unable to leave their home very often and socialize with other people. However, thanks to social media, your parent can stay connected to their loved ones and our home care specialists will gladly help them with that.

Setting up a Social Media Account

Through social media platforms, your loved one can stay connected to their old friends and even find new ones. If your parent needs help with creating an account, our home care specialists will help them with their profile and make sure the privacy settings are at an appropriate level. This way your senior will be able to avoid account hacks.

Besides Facebook or Instagram, your loved one can join sites like CaringBridge or Lotsa Helping Hands. These platforms offer home care providers and seniors opportunities to communicate changing care needs and stay in touch with loved ones who want to visit.

Schedule FaceTime or Skype dates

Thanks to all these modern apps and features like FaceTime, Google Hangouts and Skype your parent can easily stay connected with their friends and family members without even leaving their house. Although video calls cannot compare to visits in person, they are the next best thing. You or your loved one’s home care specialists can schedule these Skype dates and give your parent something to look forward to.

Joining Facebook groups

You can easily find thousands of groups on Facebook. Some of them are support groups and some of them simply gather around people with the same interests, such as fishing, music or travel. Whether your loved one wants to talk to individuals who share the same hobbies or they want a word of encouragement from seniors struggling with the same disease, they just need to find groups that are tailored to their needs and join them.

Ensure Your Parent's Safety

You need to make sure that your loved one is not sharing information they really shouldn’t, like their address or bank account number. However, do it in a subtle way so that your parent doesn’t feel like you are controlling them since this can minimize their sense of independence and autonomy.

Encourage Them to Stay Engaged In Life

While chatting with their loved ones online is great, it is not a replacement for a lunch date with a dear friend or a family member. Apart from being active on social media, your seniors should still stay active in real life. Our home care specialists can encourage them to go out and spend more time surrounded by their loved ones.

If social media sounds like the right solution for your senior loved one, contact Visiting Angels Annapolis today.