Activities for people
Help the Aged reports that only 3% of care home residents' time is spent on constructive activity.
Activities for people
Some people at home may be no better off either. Engagement between the generations is not high on most people's agendas. Talking and conversation are vital to the health, wellbeing and sense of self-esteem that people from any age group feel.
As the WRVS has noted: "Housebound and deprived of human contact, older people go downhill rapidly in both physical and mental terms and can quite literally lose the will to live. Loneliness among older people is accompanied by a loss of confidence and we know that over one in ten people over 65 suffers from depression... It is up to all of us to consider how the needs of older people can be met through increased personal contact, giving them the choice to live independently and with dignity."
Champion of older people Julia Neuberger agrees that as most of us are living alone much earlier in life and in less close-knit communities, this loneliness can be expected to increase for the older population as it ages.
Many Happy Returns makes for the perfect icebreaker for such contact between the generations and helps build vital bridges to other conversations and contact as well as raising a sense of wellbeing, self-esteem - and sometimes growth for both.
