If your mum or dad lives on their own, you have probably wondered how long that can last. Most people want to stay in their own home for as long as they can. Most families want that for them too. The hard part is knowing what actually helps.
A good place to start is a man called Ron.
Ron is 103 and still lives independently at home
Ron Letheren has just turned 103. He still lives in the house in Ellingham, on the Norfolk and Suffolk border, that he moved into with his late wife around forty years ago. He is a retired teacher and school inspector, and he served in the war.
When the BBC asked him how he does it, his answer was routine. He exercises every morning before he gets out of bed. He takes the stairs, even though it is hard. And he works through puzzles every day, because he believes the brain needs use just like the rest of the body.
It is a lovely piece and worth reading properly.
Not everyone gets Ron’s morning
Stories like this are genuinely encouraging. They are also worth handling honestly.
Ron has an unusual combination of health, discipline and independence. Plenty of families reading this will recognise straight away that their own mum or dad is not in that position. Some people have conditions that make a daily routine physically impossible. Some have memory problems that make holding on to a habit alone very difficult. That is not a failure of willpower. It is just how things are.
But there is something in Ron’s routine that almost any family can borrow. It is not the exercises. It is the fact that a routine is far easier to keep when someone else is expecting you.
Three things you could do together, from three hundred miles away
1. The morning twenty minutes
Ron’s exercises are simple. Stretches, leg strengthening, wiggling toes, lifting feet. Nothing that needs equipment beyond an elastic band.
Doing that alone in a quiet bedroom is a chore. Doing it at nine every morning while your daughter does the same thing on the screen in front of you is an appointment, and appointments get kept. You are not supervising. You are just there, doing it too, and having a chat while you do.
It is worth checking with their GP before starting anything new, especially if there is a heart condition or a history of falls. Start smaller than you think you need to.
2. Puzzles and games
This is the one that works best on a screen, because it is naturally sociable.
A few that need nothing at their end:
- The crossword. You read the clues out, you both think, you argue about seven down.
- A quiz. Six questions a day, taking it in turns to set them.
- Twenty questions, or a category round. No kit, no setup, endlessly repeatable.
- Anagrams and word games, read aloud.
- Charades. Sillier than it sounds, and better on a big screen where you can actually see each other properly.
- A memory quiz about their own life. Where was that holiday, what was the name of the dog. This one tends to turn into something better than a quiz.
Skip anything they would need to read on a page or hold in their hands. Sudoku grids and jigsaws do not survive a video call.
3. Reading aloud
Ron read lessons at his local church until recently. That habit of reading to other people is an easy one to keep going.
The version families seem to like most works the other way round from what you would expect. Grandad reads the bedtime story from his copy of the book. The child listens from the sofa. Whoever is doing bedtime follows along with a second copy so nobody loses their place. It takes ten minutes, it happens at the same time every night, and it puts the older person in the position of giving something rather than being checked on.
Where CallGenie fits
None of this needs our product. If your family member can pick up a tablet and answer a video call, use the tablet. It works.
CallGenie is there to help when they can’t. It is a simple video calling device that connects to the television they already watch every day. The call appears on the TV and answers itself, and it will wake the TV from standby to do it. There is nothing for them to press. There is nothing for them to learn, and nothing for them to remember.
That is the whole reason it exists. Every other video calling option puts the work of answering on the person receiving the call. For a lot of families, that is exactly where the daily contact quietly stopped. Not because anyone gave up, but because answering became one more thing that was too hard to manage. CallGenie is designed for older people who find using mainstream phones or video calling devices a bit more challenging.
The key takeaway
Ron’s advice was
“Never take a backward step.”
For most families, that means holding on to the small daily contact rather than letting it slip. Twenty minutes a morning is a small thing. Doing it with someone is what makes it stick. CallGenie exists so that the someone can be you, even when you live three hours away.
