Saturday, September 12, 2009

Cyber Seniors and Health

As some of you know, I have an NIA grant to go into assisted living communities (ALFs) to train older adults to use computers and the Internet and to assess the impact on their quality of life over time. We finished 6 weeks of training in our first assisted living community yesterday afternoon. The 6 weeks flew by so fast! We learned a huge amount about best practices in training in ALFs. The participants were phenomenal! I hope the skills we helped them acquire will definitely positively impact their quality of life!



We did a debriefing with them at the end of class yesterday to find out their thoughts on ways to enhance the training, how it had impacted them thus far, etc. One person said: "You've made us feel like we're part of the world again." Another noted that "We'd opened up the world for them." They are an amazing group!



The UAB Media Relations rep had issued a local press release to see if any local TV stations wanted to come out to talk to us. I was asked to be on the local Fox news at noon yesterday to talk about the study. I haven't been able to find any online link to the interview but below is one that the local ABC station did. Watch the video if you get a chance. I'm also scheduled to be on Fox' Good Day Alabama Monday morning.



Cyber Seniors: How the Internet Can Affect Health

1 comment:

Karis said...

This is so awesome! Congrats not only on getting the grant, but dreaming up a project that has a direct link to older adults, and one that HELPS them :). So proud of you! I loved the news segment. My grandma just took a "basics of computer" course at a local senior center in Baltimore, and recently told me that she "passed mouse." Keep up the great work Dr. Cotten!