Gail King, lifestyle coordinator at The Christian Village, uses the new touchscreen Linked Senior program with independent residents Bernice Cade (left) and Kitty McIntire. Skilled nursing and dementia residents also find the program stimulating.

New technology opens horizons for Christian Village residents

[October 21, 2014]  It’s no longer just the younger generations who are enjoying technology. Thanks to the Linked Senior program, now older adults at the Christian Village are using simple technology to stay engaged mentally, socially, physically and spiritually.

Accessed through touchscreen kiosks and tablets, the Linked Senior platform on the Christian Village campus is connected to the Internet 24 hours a day. Residents can access videos, music, trivia, slide shows and brain fitness activities. These can be enjoyed by those at all levels of care: independent living, rehab-to-home, long-term care and memory care.

The Linked Senior content opens up their world to new horizons and provides an opportunity to engage in person-centered experiences such as reminiscing about movies, music and fads popular in earlier decades.

Using Linked Senior enables residents to stay connected, sparking interaction among residents and providing intellectual stimulation. The Linked Senior activities also are great bonding opportunities when residents have visitors.
 

One of the unique features of Linked Senior is its ability to create and fine-tune content based on requests from each community. These requests can be based on campus-wide themes or individual resident needs.

The Christian Village is one of four Christian Homes campuses to pilot the Linked Senior program. The next step will be to roll it out to other Christian Homes communities.

“We were fortunate to be chosen to pilot this program and have fallen in love with it,” noted Jo Hilliard, administrator at the Christian Village. “It’s been a wonderful asset to our memory care program, but our independent folks use it as well. It was such a success that we began using it individually with residents on the rest of the campus.”

A nationwide program, Linked Senior was developed with input from residents and staff at senior living communities to fight dementia by providing the best engagement tools. The person-centered program provides emotional, social, physical, intellectual and spiritual stimulation for residents. The Cloud-based content is updated constantly and provides Christian Homes with endless tools to engage residents no matter what their psycho-social needs are while taking into account their cognitive levels.

Christian Village offers short-term rehabilitation, long-term skilled nursing care, respite care and hospice care. Garden homes and apartments also are available for independent older adults.

The Christian Village is one of the 13 senior living communities of Christian Homes, the second largest not-for-profit long-term healthcare provider in the U.S. with campuses in Indiana, Illinois, Iowa and Missouri.

[Cara Barr, Christian Village, Lincoln]

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