These issues may make it hard for them to use commercial video calling systems, and care staff usually need to provide extensive assistance. Moreover, many aged care residents are frail, have complex health conditions such as dementia, and have little experience with information and communications technologies. The reasons given included poor internet availability, unsuitable devices, and technical problems, all of which have been identified as barriers in previous work. A study conducted in Canada by Chu et al found that essential family caregivers were highly dissatisfied with the provision of video calls during the lockdowns. Second, studies conducted before and during the pandemic have identified that video calling is affected by challenges in long-term care. The recent lockdowns because of COVID-19 afford an important learning opportunity in this regard given that care homes had to pivot quickly to using the technology without external support from research teams. This setup partially replicates the circumstances of a lockdown, but it may not capture issues and experiences that arise in real-world use when support from researchers is unavailable. However, many such studies have involved short-term trials coordinated by research teams in which residents used video calls with relatives who could not visit the care home. There have been studies illustrating the benefits of video calls for aged care residents, including positive impacts on social connection, emotional enrichment, and feelings of depression and loneliness among residents. First, the pandemic was perhaps the first time that video calling was deployed en masse in care homes. The need to understand the utility of video calling as a replacement for face-to-face visits, especially during lockdowns, is important for multiple reasons. These studies provide important data to illustrate care providers’ adoption of video calling but do not offer insights into the experiences of people who had to rely on video calling in lieu of face-to-face visits during the lockdowns. Several studies have used survey methods to understand the availability of video calling hardware during the pandemic and whether care homes had to adjust the provision of technology for social connection. These systems-which include Skype (Skype Technologies), FaceTime (Apple), and Zoom (Zoom Video Communications)-allow 2 or more people to see each other and participate in real-time conversations using high-fidelity video and audio feeds transmitted over the internet. Īfter the onset of the pandemic, many aged care homes adopted video calling systems as a replacement for face-to-face visits. The loss of such support during the pandemic restrictions has placed renewed focus on enabling meaningful communication between residents and families during lockdowns. Families are a primary source of cognitive and emotional enrichment and contribute to advocacy, emotional support, and assistance with the personal care of residents. Beyond the positive health and well-being effects of visits from family, family members have been described as “central to the care of residents”. This can be partly attributed to the loss of physical visits from residents’ family members, who were not able to visit in person while restrictions were in place. Loneliness and isolation have long been salient problems in aged care, and there is evidence suggesting that these problems worsened during the pandemic lockdowns. Īlthough lockdowns can be an effective way to prevent disease transmission, prolonged periods of isolation are highly detrimental to the cognitive and emotional well-being of care home residents. Examples of measures implemented during lockdowns include the confinement of residents to their rooms and the suspension of all face-to-face visits from family and friends. These lockdowns were essential because of considerable outbreaks of COVID-19 within care facilities and because care home residents were highly susceptible to mortality from the disease. In recent years, lockdowns have been used to slow the spread of COVID-19 in care homes worldwide. Lockdowns are a common measure for preventing the spread of viral diseases in aged care homes.
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