Old age care in Gurgaon: The twilight years can be tumultuous for older adults. Thus, social engagement remains crucial. What is social engagement’s overall importance and role for a vulnerable and often neglected demographic?
Professional Senior Citizen Independent Living in Gurgaon: Enrolling older adults and loved ones in an assisted or independent living facility can be challenging. Notwithstanding the overall conditions, loneliness, depression, and a lack of connections and relationships remain. Social engagement for older adults remains one of the vital activities and provisions in assisted living facilities.
Table 1: Important roles of social engagement for older adults.
| Forming relationships within the assisted living facility: | Assisted and independent living facilities consist of numerous older adults enrolled. These individuals often form relationships. Social engagement programs, such as community-based activities, are often implemented so these individuals can form close relationships and friendships in the assisted living facility. |
| Emotional support: | In particular, social engagement for older adults tends to provide valid and requisite emotional support. In their twilight years, individuals facing the prospect or currently enrolled in assisted living facilities tend to face a gamut of emotions from contentment to sadness, grief, and definite anxiety. |
| Physical rehabilitation and activity: | Social engagement, particularly on-premises, tends to emphasise Physical activity and rehabilitation. This may be accomplished via group activities, scheduled in-facility interaction, and provisions for walking. Physical activity and exercise stimulate musculoskeletal and orthopaedic health, keeping muscles and bones strong. They also restore and rehabilitate endurance and general fitness and aid in and provide reductions in weight/weight loss. |
| Better integration with the assisted living facility and care staff: | Through activities, older adults are better integrated with the assisted living facility & care staff. An essential aspect of living in any community is aiding overall awareness, integration, and engagement and providing increased safety, security, and emotional resilience. |
| Effectively combats negative emotions and feelings and provides stimulation: | Life in an assisted living facility for older adults can be increasingly fraught with negative emotions and feelings. Social engagement combats feelings of loneliness, despair, and negative emotions and provides stimulation for older adults. |
| Improves cognitive stimulation and activity: | Older adults in assisted living facilities may face a lack of cognitive stimulation and activity. Social engagement is one way to improve cognitive stimulation and activity overall. |
| Incorporated in care models for Alzheimer & Dementia: | Social activity is incorporated into care models for Alzheimer’s & dementia. Provisions such as card games and games stimulate memory. Activities such as singing and music enable older adults to practise their memory. Singing, chanting and utilising memory-based activities also enable the practice of memory for older adults diagnosed with various dementias. The use of board games and puzzles also enables stimulation and memory-based activities. Carers in facilities may utilise memory-based activities. |
Conclusion: Social engagement for older adults is a provision in assisted living facilities, encompassing activities such as group-based, puzzle-based and intellectually stimulating activities. Artha: a specialised care facility for older adults providing independent and assisted living models, and is ranked among the Best Day Care Center For Old Age in NCR.
