The biggest issue with the elderly is isolation and the COVID-19 pandemic has just made it much more difficult for our elderly. The lack of familiar faces and who they see on a regular basis are now absent from their lives. Before the pandemic, our elderly were able to see certain family and friends which would jog their memory. These interactions helped them a lot.
Hope for Dementia (HFD) has always advocated to prevent isolation and reduce loneliness and to address this issue during COVID-19, HFD in collaboration with 3 MNA’s of Quebec (Members of National Assembly): Marwah Rizqy, Saint-Laurent, Christine St. Pierre, Acadie and Pierre Arcand, Mont-Royal–Outremont, together we purchased and distributed 54 iPads to elderly care facilities in our community.
What families can do to lobby for better support for their loved ones?
What we promote at Hope for Dementia is to make our elderly, our seniors part of our everyday. There are several ways we can mobilize for change. We encourage people to:
- Adopt a Grandparent/ elderly, choose to volunteer to contact and connect with them so they will not be isolated and feel lonely. Our Intergenerational Learning Program which we launched September 2019 is an example of that. We are trying to connect our youth with our elderly through technology.
- Lobby for Rapid Testing of elderly patients so we can detect Dementia and Alzheimer’s in its early stages – so people can function the best quality of life for the time they have.
Sure there are certain things we cannot do today, but in the future we can make sure there are adequate resources, and protocols in place based on what we learned from this current situation.
We all should contribute to make a better quality of life for our elders and senior citizens.
There is very little to no cost, to make someone’s day, with a conversation and just connect. 5 minutes a day – is all it takes for us to make that difference.
