Nursing homes need internet access, coronavirus shows

As coronavirus sends conscientious North Americans into social distancing mode, many people with shut-in elderly relatives are feeling a cruel irony: The very isolating measures meant to save Grandma’s life are making her feel more cut off from life than ever before. Nursing homes and other care facilities for the elderly are not typically set up to facilitate internet access for their residents.

This has moved some people to get creative, bringing us heartwarming headlines like this story of a man who stood outside his wife’s window with balloons to celebrate their 67th wedding anniversary, or this daughter who held up hand-written signs with a message of love for her mom.

At the care home in my own small town where I visit an old neighbor, I see some simple jigsaw puzzles on a common table, a meeting room with an out-of-tune piano and some old videocassettes, and TVs in each room. What I don’t see: any kind of station or setup with computer to help people get online.

A friend who works as a chaplain has observed the same thing in his area. He takes a laptop on his rounds to share with people, but nothing has been arranged on location for the residents.

One could point out that the elderly mostly lack their own tech, as do relatives of their own generation, and that old people’s homes can’t afford to hand out smart phones and laptops for all. The steep learning curve and consequent time cost to care-givers is another obvious de-motivating factor. Nursing home residents are typically in various stages of cognitive decline. Many would be unable to follow instructions even if they were offered, and others would only be able to do so with a lot of patient assistance. But this isn’t the case for all. My neighbor has mild dementia but has maintained the ability to carry on a conversation into her very old age. Having the wherewithal to schedule regular Skype or Facetime calls with her sons would be valuable to her and others like her.

Homes needn’t budget for individual devices. They could budget for a few and simply install them in a common room, then arrange for capable residents to be trained. Various sites could be blocked and other cautionary measures taken, in much the same way parents supervise a child’s Internet use. Headsets could be provided at each station for video calls or media listening. The ability to access sites like YouTube would be another obvious benefit. Why must our shut-ins be forced to make do with TV or a handful of VHS tapes rotated ad infinitum when we could put the digital world at their fingertips?

I do not run a nursing home. I could be wrong about the effort and labor that would be involved in making this sort of arrangement. But it seems to me, from my freely admitted non-professional perspective, that it should be manageable. This prompts further, perhaps uncomfortable questions about whether there needs to be another shift beyond the shift into the digital age: a shift in thinking about the elderly.

This suggestion isn’t meant to ascribe callousness or malintent to the people working hard day in and day out to meet the basic needs of the people in our old folks’ homes. I suspect that for many people, it simply hasn’t occurred to them that an 80-something-year-old still has the capacity to be bored. We like the image of Content Grandma and Grandpa, happily watching the Hallmark channel and popping old John Wayne movies into the VCR over and over. It’s sweet and nostalgic. It’s also completely undemanding.

Many people are speculating that the pandemic may shift things like university education online for more than just the immediate future. If lasting change is indeed coming, perhaps some of it can happen in how we care for our oldest citizens. We’re doing our best to protect them. Let’s try to make the years we hope they still have as rich as possible.