AGING IN PLACE: Helping seniors enjoy the holiday season

ROANOKE, Va. (WDBJ) -The vacations can deliver disappointment to folks of any age, particularly if you happen to’ve misplaced family members. However the holiday season could be particularly robust for our older relations.

Beckie Spaid with Care Benefit stopped by our WDBJ7 studios on WZBJ24 to speak about a few of the challenges the season can deliver seniors:

–Restricted mobility: Many seniors can not transfer round as they as soon as did, particularly with bodily limitations. This could make the holiday season much less thrilling for seniors, with the incapacity to buy, go to, and rejoice like others limiting the pleasure of the season.

–Loneliness and despair: Despair, anxiousness, and isolation are frequent amongst seniors, however the holiday season could make these emotions extra extreme. Whether or not it’s a scarcity of social interplay, lacking household and pals, or remembering what as soon as was, the holidays could make some seniors really feel extra lonely than another time of yr.

–Reminiscences of the previous: Many seniors have a tough time accepting that their present life will not be prefer it was in the previous.

–Monetary burden: The vacations can get costly.

However Spaid says there are some issues relations can do to make the season brighter for his or her older family members:

–Make holiday rituals intergenerational: Encourage your youngsters, grandchildren and growing older family members to bake treats, take a look at footage, sing Christmas carols or partake in holiday crafts collectively.

–Adorn collectively: Use your elders’ treasured holiday decorations. Speak about every bit as you pull it out of storage.

–Help with holiday greetings: Ask in the event that they need assistance writing and sending Christmas playing cards or holiday letters. You’re additionally serving to them keep related with different household and pals, which turns into more difficult with age.

–Be supportive: Be on the lookout for playing cards, telephone calls and different correspondence they obtain throughout the holidays. Typically, the information they include will not be nice. For instance, somebody’s partner has died or a good friend could be very unwell. Preserve an eye fixed out for indicators of despair and make sure to supply help if there’s something weighing on their thoughts.

–Reminisce: Encourage your elders to inform tales of the previous. There’s something about passing on recollections throughout the holidays that basically brings households collectively.