Intergenerational Care: Where Kids Help Seniors Live Longer

Intergenerational care provides an environment where children and seniors inspire and learn from each other, and is seen as an opportunity to impart wisdom to the younger generation while older adults benefit from relationships and more longevity, reports CNN . The U.K.-based Jewish care community Nightingale House offers an example of such a program with its Apples and Honey Nightingale program, which offers children and residents activities such as baking, gardening, art, and exercise. Participating residents respond "to an external stimulus, which is a toddler with an adorable grin fumbling towards them, carrying a toy, trying to interact," says Apples and Honey Nightingale co-founder Ali Somers. She also notes residents "very often forget their own physical limitations, and they find that they are encouraged; they stretch themselves; they will lean up out of their chair, extend a hand, engage in conversation." The residents' average age is older than 90 while 10 percent are over 100, which makes mobility, frailty, and loneliness priorities. Somers says when residents are more engaged, they are encouraged to walk down to the nursery to see the children. "They're going outside more. They want to opt in to working with and spending time with and playing with the children." Intergenerational care is inspired by similar movements in the United States and elsewhere, with Apples and Honey Nightingale co-founder Judith Horowitz noting "people are becoming more and more aware of the age apartheid that we live with."