Help to families and carers of seniors

Please be  patient, many seniors have not had the opportunity to learn to use digital technology and this can be overwhelming.  It is important to provide ongoing support (this could be from a family member, friend or a Digital Seniors coach).

Don’t overwhelm your senior, introduce 1 or 2 things at a time, make sure everyone in the family is on the same page  so your senior is given consistent support.

Make sure all family members are on the same page with the right device before spending money. Don’t jump in too fast, consider your seniors hearing, eyesight and memory. Retail shops might not give the best advice when it comes to assisting seniors.

Getting older often means weakening eyesight, so our advice is often to make use of a tablet which has a much bigger screen than a phone.

Digital Seniors is here to help assess the need and offer helpful advice, there are devices and technology to help in any situation.

There are many ways we can help set up your seniors device to assist with hearing difficulties such as apps that transcribe spoken audio into text and pairing your seniors device to a hearing aid. Please call us for a free assessment. 

You can easily customize your seniors device  so it is more accessible. Increasing the font size, adjusting the brightness and helping your senior use mobile voice assistants can make technology more accessible to the visually-impaired. Normally there is a new technology out there that will make the senior’s life easier, technology that keeps changing, so please ask the questions.

‘Smart’ devices like Amazon Echo, Google Home, and Apple HomePod can help seniors with memory problems. These are voice-activated devices that can answer questions or be set to notify you of tasks.

For example, they can tell you the time and date if you ask, and can remind you when it is time to take medication. Memory can play havoc with seniors trying to remember passwords, please call us for a free assessment.

We would recommend getting your senior a stylus. 

Get them playing an online game they are familiar with such as solitaire, this will help them get used to the way the device works and is great practice for using touchscreens.

This can be an issue with many seniors due to dryness or thickness of skin. Using a stylus can help overcome this, or simply wetting your finger can work too in some cases.

Make sure the hand me down is in great condition and suits your seniors needs. An older device that has functionality problems might make your senior more frustrated and less likely to persevere.