It takes a village to protect the elderly: India's senior living communities race to beat Covid-19 challenges

The Union Health Ministry recently issued an advisory to the elderly, warning them that the novel coronavirus disease tends to be more severe among the elderly, resulting in higher mortality. The elderly were asked to stay at home, avoid meeting visitors at home and if a meeting is essential, maintain a distance of one meter.

ET Panache spoke to a few senior living communities to understand some of the challenges their elderly residents were facing and what they are doing to help.

Isolated but Not Alone
“As providers of service and care to communities designed for senior citizens, there are two key challenges we face,” said Mohit Nirula, CEO of Columbia Pacific Communities. “To ring-fence the Community against the virus while continuing to provide services that necessarily require human interaction and to maintain morale and happiness levels in a time of social distancing.”


“While service frequency may not be at the same levels as before the lockdown – residents can be confident that their day to day needs for housekeeping, maintenance support, dining and medical will be available 24 x 7. In fact, one must compliment and acknowledge the role played by the residents themselves in ensuring that the Communities remain socially engaged while maintaining the distancing necessary under the circumstances.”

Stay Connected
One reason Nirula stresses on communities remaining socially engaged is the toll he believes loneliness takes on these residents. “Loneliness and the accompanying anxiety and depression have an adverse impact on both mental health and physical immunity,” he explained.

“What they (the residents) should not do is go into a shell (especially since) technology has made it possible for us to remain engaged. WhatsApp and FaceTime chats with friends and family, exchanging information and entertaining content over WhatsApp and the phone are good ways to stay engaged.”

Identify Problem Areas
The co-founders of TriBeCa Care, Prateep Sen and Tamojit Dutta, agree. When asked about some of the challenges the elderly are facing during this time, social isolation was one of the first points they brought up.

“For the 100+ mn elderly in India, the lockdown has been difficult for their daily routine,” said Sen and Dutta. “(There is an) Increased incidence of stress, depression and loneliness due to limited movement and limited recreational activities available outside the home - including exercising and social interaction.”

The founders also believe that low tech-readiness has impacted digital participation and the elderly’s ability to seeking timely help/advice from even close family/friends.

Some of the other challenges they mentioned were problems with healthcare difficulty in purchasing medicine, ordering blood tests at home, attending doctor consultations, non-critical surgeries, etc.) and problems in everyday life such as difficulty in purchasing groceries, arranging cooked food or even visiting ATMs. “Limited usage of ATMs and online banking affects seniors very badly as they often end up in long queues at local branches,” they said. With this aim in mind, the duo launched three new initiatives for their residents - “Dare to Care” - a service for senior citizens struggling to get essential services, such as groceries and medicines, delivered home; “Talk to Me” – a service for all seniors needing doctor advice on non-critical illnesses or counseling support over phone and “Happy at Home” – free access to recreational activities through our WhatsApp groups and Zoom sessions (e.g. crosswords, sudoku, book reading, quizzes etc) - to combat loneliness.

Invest in Regular Health Updates
Despite these initiatives, healthcare still remains a primary concern for any senior living community. To help combat this, Ashiana Housing (a developer with specialized housing for senior citizens across Bhiwadi, Delhi, Lavas-Pune, Jaipur, and Chennai) has tied up with Dozee (a contact-free health monitoring device) to track the health of their residents and flag off any deterioration in advance. The device is a thin sensor sheet that goes below the mattress and tracks heartbeat, respiration, sleep, and stress-recovery.

“During these crucial times, as more and more elders need proactive health monitoring, Dozee is aiding in knowing the continuous health status of elders, that can be accessed easily by medical professionals on a single dashboard remotely,” said a statement from the company. “This reduces the burden on the limited medical staff available and prevents their exposure to infection spread. Health staff is now able to spend more time in face-to-face interactions, instead of spending time collecting vitals’ data, helping ease anxiety of elders in these tough times. Children living away from their elders can also remotely monitor their health on the app.”

Lean on Your Community
For those elderly citizens who do not have access to a retirement community or a 24x7 staff, there are other ways you can lean on your community to help you through this lockdown.

The TriBeCa Care co-founders believe that younger family members and neighbours can help reduce stress for the elderly during this time in many ways:

a) Run errands for them (e.g. grocery shopping, bank work etc) thereby reducing their exposure to the virus
b) Check up on them regularly through a phone or skype call, a no-contact visit or a WhatsApp message
c) Constantly reiterate safety measures needed to fight Covid-19
d) Prepare healthy, cooked food for those who are sick or unable to fend for themselves
e) Discuss contingency and emergency response plans, if the elderly loved one stays alone
f) Engage them in fun games, light exercises and activities at home - either in person or through social media platforms.