Activities for people

Talking and conversation are vital to the health, wellbeing and sense of self-esteem that people from any age group feel.

Help the Aged reports that only 3% of care home residents' time is spent on constructive activity.

People at home are sometimes no better off, after all, engagement between the generations is not high on most people's agendas.

Many Happy Returns 1940s and 1950s Chatterbox cards make for the perfect icebreaker for contact between the generations and help build vital bridges to other conversations and connection. This raises people's well being and self-esteem.

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 Baroness 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.