Jim Buie's Page

I'd like to ask this community how we can transform the quality of life for senior citizens. Let's build the support system now so that when we get to the age when we need it, it'll be there for US.

One of the greatest challenges today is maintaining quality of life for senior citizens. Social isolation, depression, a sense of meaninglessness despite years of productive work and successful relationships, loss of friends, sense of accomplishment and identity, loss of health, the enormous cost of health care in the final years of life, traumatic moves to institutions for the last years or months of life -- these are common experiences for senior citizens and their families.

For more than 10 years, I've been using new media tools to improve the quality of life for senior citizens. As part of a Washington area PR firm, I consulted with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, PBS, SeniorNet and dozens of partner organizations on national policy. I've created and managed websites and social networks that advocate for senior citizens as a group. I've set up networks for "epatients" -- patients with chronic or terminal illnesses using the Internet for frequent -- daily, sometimes hourly -- to support each other emotionally and intellectually, and to communicate with health professionals.

On a personal level, I've worked with individual senior citizens to create blogs, even video blogs, and books (print on demand) to advocate for causes they believe in, share their reflections on current events as well as their memories and life stories.

See http://jimbuie.blogs.com/mac
See http://jimbuie.blogs.com/john_huth/
See http://www.lillianbuie.com

For senior citizens experiencing memory loss, keeping an online journal, seeing photos and interviews with themselves at an earlier age can help them maintain a sense of memory, identity and a sense of personal narrative.

I've also set up video conferences for senior citizens to communicate with their children, grandchildren, old friends and even to tutor students interested in their expertise. These new tools help to reduce their sense of isolation and gives them a sense of continuing to contribute to the world.

Alas, I've been frustrated by how slowly the support system around senior citizens has been open to utilizing these new tools.

Here's a slideshow/video I produced (selected and scanned pictures, selected and edited video clips and music) for the 60th wedding anniversary of a couple in their mid-eighties that now lives at Carolina Meadows in Chapel Hill. I used an LCD projector and speakers to show this video to about 100 family and friends at a dinner, then posted it on Youtube and Facebook so that those who could not attend from far away could enjoy it, and so that those close to the couple could enjoy watching it over and over.

These kinds of slide shows set to music, as well as video interviews looking back on highlights of their lives, are increasingly meaningful to senior citizens and their loved ones. It also gives them a kind of digital immortality for their children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and future generations.

I am eager to work with more senior citizens and their families on a hourly basis or on a project basis.

I'd like to know what others on this network are doing to connect with or care for senior citizens, even if it's just your parents. How might we as "the larger community" improve their quality of life?

PS -- it's great to see Dennis Chapman's post on senior citizen in-home companion care.