welcome to perspectives from WFSU public media I'm Tom Flanigan this program using the zoom platform pre-recorded on Tuesday March 16th for playback on Thursday March 18th the show to air on WFSU FM also will be archived on wfsu.org wow on one hand it kind of seems like yesterday and on the other it's it's like years have elapsed and I'm talking about this time just a year ago when the pandemic truly became a determining force in our lives at least for most of us and among those who have been most impacted by all of this has been our older friends and and relations and neighbors and much has certainly been written and said about the higher mortality rate for seniors when it comes to covet 19 but combine that with increased isolation and a host of other factors and it would seem that a very large percentage of our seasoned citizens if you will would be in some pretty dire straits right now but that's not necessarily the case kind of runs the gamut and so we thought we would try to grab at least an overall snapshot of where we are when it comes to older folks and how they are reacting and interacting and all of that when it comes to the new circumstances in which we find ourselves more hopeful circumstances certainly as the vaccine rolls out particularly for this segment of the population and uh eventually through everything so anyway we've got a phenomenal panel to talk about that whole thing today and let's go around and and meet everybody again via zoom we'll start with Yolanda Hue with tapestry senior living in Tallahassee who kind of helped to organize all this and Yolanda thank you so much for uh volunteering to do that and it's a good to see you out there at tapestry which location are you located in yeah well I appreciate you allowing us to do this so I actually am at both properties I float on back and forth so I love it I get to be at both communities and see how each one is unique in their character and so I really appreciate this opportunity to kind of share a little bit about what's going on from our perspective that's terrific Yolanda thank you so much also on our panel today is Twyla Sketchley who practices elder law in the Florida big bend and in full disclosure is a very frequent supporter of WFSU for which we are eternally grateful and Twyla it is good to see you you keeping busy i am keeping real busy thanks to the pandemic which surprised me um like you said i practice elder law mostly in north Florida but throughout the state and the pandemic has brought a number of unique challenges to the aging community particularly in elder law and protecting elders and getting certain things in place so I'm happy to be here today and I'm excited to learn what all these folks have to say about what they're all doing with this lovely change of events we've got yes yes indeed that's why we're here we also welcome to the panel Gail Matillo who is with the senior living association of Florida and Gail it is a pleasure to have you on the team here today well thank you tom thank you so much for the invitation and and i look forward to uh to speaking with everyone today I know Florida senior living association represents about 450 large assisted living memory care and independent communities so we're happy to share what we've been doing this past year boy that will be great to get that sort of information out here Gail so we appreciate you sharing that with us and uh we finally wrap things up here with Dr. Neil Charness director of the institute for successful longevity at Florida state university and one of the premier researchers when it comes to older uh living issues and that kind of thing Dr. Neil how you been doing here in the wonderful world of uh zoom calls oh i spent a big chunk of time thanks for inviting me um yeah there's been massive changes certainly for the research community because researchers like myself basically all our face-to-face research projects ended very suddenly when covid uh hit on the other hand uh we've learned to use zoom as a way to carry out some types of studies so we've managed to kind of limp along and and keep going um and i guess the other thing I'd say is that as a senior myself I've gotten to experience personally some of the issues and the challenges that uh others in my age category are have been experiencing and there's some good news there's some bad news hopefully we can chat about that today and i think we have one other person still Sheila we do indeed that is Sheila Sawyer who we have not seen out and about in quite a time because the Tallahassee senior center has gone to a virtual reality as well but uh Sheila you're here in the flesh albeit cybernetically and it's wonderful to see your face again it's great to see you all thank you so much for having me uh yeah we we just kind of pivoted kind of quickly and uh went uh virtual to begin with and phone old-fashioned phone calls and we then we transitioned to some drive-through events and so now we're doing some outside fitness events and doing some some tax aid services in very very modified uh ways but i think we all learned the value of uh essential social services and what the senior center provides for for uh seniors to stay connected and that was really our focus to try to keep everybody connected so they didn't feel isolated and alone during this whole you know this whole challenge of of coping well we can't wait to hear how that transition is moving forward from the purely virtual into kind of a hybrid situation that you just described right now but first to catch up on what's going on with our assisted living uh community here Yolanda let's start with you here as far as tapestry is concerned how have you folks been adjusting to what was initially essentially a quarantine where your residents had to have no connection other than the staff that you had there at tapestry and that was very very limited too what's things like for you folks now so it's been a unique year and i think a lot of what we started doing a year ago to um to make accommodations because of the current climate have kind of just become a norm they've become data part of our day-to-day and we've just adjusted um activities are done in a socially distant manner we will do small groups of the same activities multiple sessions throughout the day so everyone's included we will do small outings again multiple sessions to include everyone staff also has represented more than just caregivers or they represent more than just being caregivers uh you know we are helping residents log onto zoom so they can go to they can watch their uh grandchildren graduate we're helping them skype and face time and we're spending time with them at the beginning of the quarantine i'll just never forget i started gardening with a specific resident and the plant we had started in a little pot about this big and i had to bring her this big old planter two weeks ago because it's grown and those were the small things we were doing to ensure that while we can't ever replace family we were still giving them that extra care and you know just uh ice it's it's love right you love the people that you work with you love the people you spend time with it's different from your family but you still love them and so that be has become our norm um we've adjusted we have the plastic barriers in the dining room so that residents can sit two to a table and still fellowship we have the churches have been great they have virtual bible study we have musicians who will play outside and we open up all the windows and so it's it's been a unique year but in a weird way it's become our new norm everyone's happy they feel fulfilled and um you know it's where we're constantly adjusting we're always looking at the new guidelines seeing what we can implement what we can adjust because we want them to feel like this is their home and so we're trying to get back to a sense of normal for them and of course the vaccines have helped um having residents who you know we had 99 of resident participation for the vaccinations and that was huge for us and you know we're able to accommodate uh visits in the community and residents who are vaccinated are um permitted to go out with their family right we encourage small groups um but when they come back they don't have to quarantine right so i kind of have been telling everyone Easter is a big deal because last year Easter we had to cancel our Sunday brunch and while we can't do Sunday brunch again we have told them please you know go have dinner at your children's home you're vaccinated um please wear a mask wash your hands and avoid large groups but it's just nice that they can have that little bit of normalcy back still within um all of the guidelines and so it's been neat uh admissions into the community are different i think um everyone's kind of adjusted so more folks are adventure are venturing out they're looking at options i kind of joke I've been with tapestry for so long I'm getting calls and they're like are you still a tapestry we called you you know a year ago or a year and a half ago but we're ready now that things have kind of settled a bit and it's nice to say yeah we're here we're doing great we can accommodate tours we can do rapid tests and so it's just really neat to see how everything's changed and um i don't think we're we're not scared of all the change we've really embraced it because we want the residents to feel comfortable we want our friends in the community to feel comfortable we want anyone who visits their loved one to feel comfortable all within the parameters of you know how we have to uh hold those different events well thank you for that update here for the a particular situation that involves a tapestry senior living Yolanda but Gail Matillo let's look at the larger statewide ramifications of this many states have have stumbled when it comes to not only handling quarantine and visitation and all of that in these facilities but even as vaccinations get underway they've had some problems here how are we doing in Florida overall from your you know what tom we're doing great i mean early on the governor prioritized seniors he hasn't stopped he's continued to prioritize vaccinations for seniors he put together a visitation task force he put together a vaccination tax task force and i happened to serve on both of those so i think overall Florida has done a tremendous job with getting the vaccines to the seniors and all of the work that has been done behind the scenes you know the department of health is still working very hard you know they're taking you know they took the the oldest first with the most chronic conditions and now they're reducing the ages to 60 50 and now they're looking at schools and you know so they've got this huge plan that they've been working from the get-go and it seems to be working so we're really happy with the way that Florida has reacted and the things that have been done here in the state whereas other states they still are struggling to get the vaccine you know they they're um they're having some issues in some other states and so it's a it's a good day to be living in Florida for sure Yolanda said that uh as far as the two tapestry facilities here in Tallahassee they're around 99 do you have any figures for statewide uh vaccination for uh folks in the in the rest of that population sure yes so we figured that about 86 of all the residents in Florida have been vaccinated and we're talking over 3 100 assisted living communities in the state um and that's about a hundred and eleven thousand seniors so of that about 80 83 to 86 percent whereas the the staff though we're still struggling with the staff we're looking at about a 40 percent um so far for the staff to be vaccinated so our members and als are encouraging staff to really think about you know getting this vaccine and i think as time goes on and they see that it's safe that more and more of the staff will go ahead and and get vaccinated yeah and that reluctance seems to kind of mirror the general population from the latest numbers that we've seen as well so thanks Gail this certainly though as we come off of a time of pretty extensive isolation though Twyla Sketchley does that or has that increased the vulnerability of seniors when it comes to i mean everything from you know telephone scams to uh not so nice relatives who might be taking advantage of that situation is that what you're seeing unfortunately yes um and there's a you know first of all the social life social ISIL isolation you know they don't have people regularly checking on them making sure they're not subject to abuse or neglect or exploitation you're also seeing the coveted financial strain impacting elders so you may have family members who had good jobs and you know decent livings prior to covid and then they lose their job and now you have a senior in the family who has a steady income and assets and that person either voluntarily or involuntarily is supporting family members because of the loss of income that creates a problem for a number of reasons one it deprives that senior of assets and income that they need to take care of themselves on the other hand too is when that senior runs out of money if they've given away their assets to their children they may not be eligible for public benefits to help cover the costs of long-term care so it's kind of a double-edged sword and we've seen an uptick in exploitation cases since the about last June we've seen um a not a definite uptick in the number of cases um where people are alleging abuse and neglect in facilities um because where families were coming in on a you know regular basis and checking on their loved one they weren't able to do that for months and you know when facilities are strapped for employees and employees aren't showing up because they're sick and you know it it it creates a an oven for baking bad stuff so that's where we find ourselves now it's starting to get a little better with the vaccine you know i have seniors who when we come in and we do what limited in office stuff we do you know they'll announce I've had both of my vaccines and that's just kind of like yes so and our our firm made a decision at the beginning of this that we would our firm would not do in-person house calls or in-person visits to facilities the governor's order allowed legal services to be presented and you could be in person but you know i know Yolanda and a number of people like her in the community and if me and my staff if three of us show up at a facility to do a signing you know that's a danger to the people in that facility and if we can do it in an outdoor way it's also an extreme inconvenience and i our office just made the decision that if we could avoid that across the board that's what we did so we have had very few in-person house calls or facility visits in the past year just to you know alleviate the stress on the facilities so yeah sounds like a prudent way to to move forward but that will obviously change as we get a greater proliferation of vaccinations in the community and all all that kind of thing but dr dr neil if we can ask you here what you've been dealing with as far as again uh limiting some of the research uh possibilities that would be yours under normal circumstances but moving forward under these uh conditions what kinds of things have you folks been doing at the institute and what sorts of things are are you most involved with trying to figure out giving these circumstances yeah um much of our research has kind of moved online um zoom is probably our favorite platform at this point uh like many many other peoples and of course we we try to provide good instruction uh to people to use zoom but it's also meant that it's become a lot easier in some ways to have collaborations so to give an example on uh FSU's part of a consortium of universities looking up at one of the problems twilight identified which is the extent to which seniors are being or fraud attempts are being attempted related to covet 19. and we just just started looking at the data on that we're submitting a paper to a conference in November and sadly kind of what we suspected there's a lot more of that activity going on specifically covert related pitches a lot of it's coming surprisingly online now here's the problem because most of the people were contacting we're contacting online we're dealing with kind of the savvy senior population and so a lot of scams come on the telephone but i think it's we're seeing about 40 percent of scam attempts coming uh from an on an online basis and sadly of the people that we've been interviewing um and this is a short-term longitudinal study that's looking at changes over time about 10 admit to having sent money to a scammer so it's that's a pretty high rate uh based on you know other research that has been done in this area so we're a little concerned that as as trial was mentioning when you become more socially isolated as was the case with covet you're probably more prey to those types of scam attempts than under normal circumstance and that was in part the reason for for starting that particular study so that's kind of one example we we had a multi-university consortium put together we did it all kind of by email online actually i think in that one i don't think we had even had a zoom meeting for us all to get together so we'll probably get together for the first time in a conference to talk about our our results but um we've also tried to move online for some of the research we do is what we call experimental research where we provide people the opportunities to interact with say a computer system with software on it and they have to carry out activities with that computer those types of studies have become much more difficult and so one of the approaches we've taken is to send computers to people with things set up as best we can and try to lead them through the experiments that way we're holding our focus groups online at this point in fact sadly i just volunteered my spouse Beth to serve on one of the focus groups that was short of person uh yesterday um i don't know if she's been included just yet but uh she's very busy still with uh um her newfound freedom after we both got our our second covet shots is actually looking forward to instead of playing online versions of mahjong where she's racked up about 44 000 points on her favorite website which shows you she's been playing way too much she's about with uh her former uh mahjong players i think to organize a a small meeting at a house again along with CDC guidelines but yeah it's really covets really forced us all to be really resilient and and that's true generally of the senior population what's been amazing to me all the research i've been reading is that if you look at the groups in our society who've been most stressed out and most distressed by having to deal with with with the coveted routines it's not been the senior population for the most part they've done slightly better if anything than other cohorts the groups that have been most hurt are younger women with children with families who have the stress of at home parenting at home schooling for their children and so on and they don't have the outlet because of the problems early on before vaccines became available of being able to ask for for instance the grandparents like myself to come in and provide some of the support that they would normally have so seniors have been isolated but that we've also isolated families from seniors who could be really helpful under normal circumstances with these types of demands on people's time well that's what we hope that that vaccination uh cohort expansion continues so that you can get more of those family resources back together again but you brought up something great Dr. Neil oh by the way i have heard also mahjong has been called world of warcraft for golden agers i don't know if you've heard that i haven't heard that but thank you i'll pass that back yeah that can be very very dangerous and addictive stuff i know Sheila sawyer that is one thing though that you have done at the Tallahassee senior center even prior to the onset of the pandemic was to make sure that the participants in all of the multitudinous in-person programs you had were at least somewhat conversant with technology has that increased and to have programs online to help people become even better online now that that has become the preferred way of communicating and and connecting with people yeah absolutely um and with uh Neil's help and the institute we did they did some zoom training like train the trainer program early on and so we had excuse me an army of volunteers that we could call on to help individually with seniors at home and doing zoom and it's amazing a lot of seniors did adapt and they if that was their option that was their choice they they figured it out and it was interesting across the state when you'd sit in on some other zoom classes and things in other communities you could tell our folks had been doing it a lot longer and they were getting better at it they were they were getting used to the mute button and the you know the video stuff and everything and you'd go to somewhere else and it was you know it was like way back in the beginning of when we started and um so people do get better at seniors have been like Neil said i want to follow up with that with been resilient i want to say too is i've sat in on national i served on a national accreditation for senior centers and in our state association as we have we meet monthly with our leadership group our senior center directors across the state have also been resilient they have turned to state their goal has been the same as ours to keep seniors connected that was just the most critical thing and then how we do that whether they do that through lifelong learning health and wellness you know our fitness classes have been on wcot for the last um since last June i think four mornings a week that you could tune into a fitness class with that with just through your tv uh those classes are on demand and going forward and that's something that we've tried to focus on with our with our staff our team who's been tremendous if you haven't seen me but maybe you've seen them out about um they have uh they've also worked really hard behind the scenes to uh to make all this happen and um going forward we've tried to focus on what we could do not what we couldn't do we've tried to just keep our heads up stay in there with it um and going forward we're we are looking at a lot more hybrid situations where you know we're looking at how to get our building our current building um equipped to be able to do that we're not there yet but coming back a lot of people like the virtual classes it will be options for people who can't come for a certain period of time or can't come anymore to a physical you know senior center that they can still participate in classes so we're going to try to equip all of our program spaces that way it's very well that brings us back to uh Yolanda then at at tapestry and Yolanda how have you been coping as far as traditionally having so many activities at places like yours that have been in person have been congregate have been a bunch of folks working together and now you have to have even after vaccinations have become so widespread you still have to have all the precautions in place to make sure that nobody gets sick how do you pull that off so it's been really um unique we actually have a system built into our TVs um and so for a long time we were able to make power points we could broadcast stuff and it would go right into the resident apartments so that was a huge help i have to give credit to the senior center we have actually been able to do events where our residents are participating and the community is participating because of zoom and um you know i met with Lori early on and she said we're gonna do the zoom classes and i was i was so thankful because if it was a way for us to stay connected um and to kind of merge those two for example the senior center is having their St. Patrick's day event it's virtual they're going to have the dancers um we we're gonna broadcast it right so we will set up our residence in different spaces have it broadcasted on multiple large TVs so we keep it socially distant we get to watch the dancers we're gonna serve some Irish cream soda i heard there's some bailey's somewhere and uh we're having corned beef and hash before corned beef and um cabbage before and so that's how we've been doing it right so we see what is out there right and we focus on okay how can we take this and make it feel like one of our grand events because you're right um tom you've been to some of our events we have huge luaus and Halloween parties and um for Halloween this year we couldn't have our trick-or-treaters annually we got about 300 trick-or-treaters the residents love it their grandbabies come and their neighbors children come and it would they were really sad when we you know we had to cancel it but what we did was is um each floor we did a drive-by parade so family decorated their car the residents sat outside socially distant we did the big food setup we served everyone but they still got to see the grandkids drive by and wave and so we've just taken um and created new best practices of how we do events you know all of our events we're still doing them in a modified version right so we might say okay first and second floor your part your Easter party is on this date and everyone comes and they know where they can sit where they cannot sit we serve and then we'll recreate the same thing two hours later for third and fourth you know our memory care units are unique in that they're small neighborhoods right so there's only 14 folks on that floor they have quarantined together throughout the um pandemic so we just again duplicate the party upstairs so it's um kind of funny because we kind of do the same thing sometimes all day but it's because they they want to keep those traditions alive um because some of our residents have been with us since each property opened right so they look forward to these annual events um but we're always looking for ways to partner in the community and you know if i see someone hosting a virtual program well you know we will get that zoom link and we'll broadcast it but something that i thought was really cool that each property did is we got residents um passports and we did um we went around the world right so we would go to italy and we'd get a we'd read a book about italy we'd watch a documentary we'd listen we might even get live music to play we'd have a traditional dinner on that day the chef out did outdid himself with the dinner we had red wine on the table and so you know we couldn't travel but we traveled and so those were the things that we did to really just keep true to who tapestry is right because we we wanted we always wanted to be the non-traditional assisted living right we know what we have to provide everyone knows we can we provide care as needed um but we also didn't want seniors to ever move into our one of our communities and feel like they lost their sense of identity or they lost that spirit in them and we really try to keep that going through the activities the activity programs we offer and so um i think the team has done a great job i sit in awe because sometimes i'm tied up in calls all day and i'll come out and there's this massive setup and i'm like oh man there's a there's a party game ready to happen and so it still feels like the tapestry that you know when we were having our huge luau and St. Patrick's day parties uh two and three years ago well that's important traditions particularly for folks who look forward to special occasions and to keep that alive even given the the challenges that you're uh you're working with Yolanda a a quick reminder that we are doing a senior update here on perspectives from WFSU public media with a great panel of experts in the in the seasoned citizen arena to find out where we are and how things are transitioning here to perhaps a little more open and dare we say more normal set of circumstances as we go through this hey if you miss all or part of the perspectives it's always available online on our wfsu.org website we try to have the most recent show up as soon as we can after it airs on the radio so you can revisit it as many times as you would like bouncing off of what Yolanda was just saying though Gail Matillo if we can ask you what does the assisted living industry here in Florida need from the legislature we always ask that when we are in the midst of a legislative session are there any particular measures that are teed up that could provide additional help for the industry and residents as we start moving through this transitional period well you know this all was new to assisted living providers we you know we are not nursing homes we do not care for those with really chronic conditions that need 24-hour care so a number of our communities were not ready for the you know the ppe and um and all of the necessary uh supplies and equipment that they needed to you know to put in place isolation wings and that sort of thing and let me just say first though they have done an outstanding job of caring for their seniors during this entire year i know it's hard to believe that it's already been a year it's kind of flown by because we've all been so busy you know just working all of the changes that have come down the pike and i would like to do a shout out real quick you know you were talking about technology and connections um the department of elder affairs with jack York from intul and the Alzheimer's association received a grant from the agency for healthcare administration and put tablets in communities and gave those to seniors so they could reach out to the outside and i i think that's just a great idea and then with the senior centers and and others teaching seniors how to operate the tablets and and you know the internet and and all of the different technology that's out there last year we were successful in passing legislation that would allow assistive devices in these communities so now they're able to to use the the most current technology from now on inside their homes and their assisted living community so we're really proud of that technology and what's to come for seniors um as far as the legislature yes nursing homes hospitals all of the federally regulated communities received some funding which we didn't so we are asking the legislature for a one-time funding allocation to help assisted living communities recover from the ppe and the losses that they've incurred in Florida alone over one billion dollars and has gone to just hero pay hazard pay um ppe and all of the things so they've lost over a billion dollars this past year you know we're looking at a crisis in our situation right now um because these communities you know this uh while residents are being vaccinated and you know hopefully more staff will be vaccinated we don't consider this uh pandemic to be over yet because we're still right in the midst of you know wearing the ppe continued testing um working with seniors you know in new move-ins to get vaccinated so we don't consider this over yet we think this is going to be our new normal from this point forward how's staffing going with the uh with the facilities do you folks have enough people to keep doing what you need to do you know workforce is is always been an issue but it has really um been a huge issue for us this past year you know senior living is a great opportunity for most people and you know a lot of the kids coming out of college now they don't consider senior living as their main focus they kind of get into our business either by accident or you know some other way by some other profession you might say but we offer so much and if anybody out there is looking for a job uh they have a pretty good background um i would consider you know check out senior living because it's such a rewarding role and you can move up through the communities and and make a great living in our profession and given the demographics it's a growth industry that is the truth we haven't even reached the wave of seniors you know and i'm so excited to say that you know Florida is number two in the country of the number of seniors and we pride ourselves on being a senior friendly state so that's another thing too tom thanks for reminding me anybody come on down to Florida we we've got plenty of room for you and even Tallahassee now is vying to become a retirement mecca as the jews Tallahassee folks will be happy to tell you if you ask them Twyla Sketchley how are you dealing with the court system here we got a backlog i know in civil cases down at the second judicial circuit that is mind-numbing are any of these cases ever going to come to to resolution well yes eventually um just to stop the pandemic the supreme court through a series of administrative orders shrunk down at one point absolutely eliminated in-person of court hearings that's starting to loosen up some for you know what i call vital things so criminal due process cases domestic violence those kinds of things are starting to open up in my arena um almost everything i do is via zoom or telephone now and um that actually has had some real positive effects that i don't think anybody thought of you know before when you would have a guardianship and you'd have somebody that was in a nursing home or assisted living facility that was subject to a guardianship it was fairly difficult to get them to the courthouse to participate in the hearing and now with zoom and the facilities have been great you know they'll help actually put that person on the zoom hearing with a laptop or an iPad and so that person can actually now participate in the hearing which was we tried to do in the past but it was often very difficult to do especially for people who are homebound or bed bound the other thing that i think has been a positive in all of this is that the cost of legal services for doing hearings has gone down because instead of having to pay for me to travel someplace to go to a hearing and sit there and wait if the judge is running behind and then have my hearing in back i'm in my office i may be doing something else and then my hearing comes up i participate in my hearing i'm done with my hearing and it's over and so we've eliminated a lot of that kind of uh open cost in there so that's some positive things that i see um our circuit has been really good um within i would say three weeks of everything closing down last year our circuit had a plan our judges held telephone conferences with the attorneys that were the people in that area of practice and explained what they expected and what they were supposed to do and it's been going fairly smooth now those cases that aren't you know it's really hard to do a zoom trial with a jury and all of that so those kinds of things are being postponed although we are having zoom jury trials around the state nation and they're kind of interesting um but you know those things are going to loosen up as more and more people get vaccinated and you know we don't have the danger of getting everybody in the same room all at once so i think those things are going to loosen up probably within the next six or eight months so okay that that is good to know uh Dr. Neil Charness if we can talk here about the opportunities that you see coming out of this situation for additional research additional lines of inquiry when it comes to our senior population uh what's the institute looking at as we head into that uh still a little bit murky future yeah a very good question um i think one of the things something i've of course in members of our institute have been interested in for a long time is use of technology by seniors and as Sheila and others have pointed out um when that became the only way in which they could interact they started to interact and actually this is something i think i identified with a colleague at university of Michigan really early on because they were starting to uh organize some of their first covid related studies these were primarily uh survey studies one of the things i was really curious about was not just whether seniors were able to do the just-in-time learning to get on zoom but how that affects their general attitudes towards the use of technology more broadly and i have kind of a a sense certainly talking to to fellow seniors that what this has done is it's enabled them to see themselves as able to use modern technology that is it's going to encourage them to use other forms that they would never have considered in the past telehealth is probably a really good example of that because we suddenly got early on in the pandemic we had some funding available to healthcare providers to do some of their visits as virtual visits and that would be funded by hhs and Medicare Medicaid and so on that was never the case in the past and so that kind of forced not just physicians and nurses other healthcare providers social workers psychologists to start to provide those services in that form but that now suddenly opens up a lot more opportunities particularly for people in rural communities assuming we can get reliable internet into those rural communities as i mentioned going going on in this interview i had to leave my home where internet failed slightly uh about half an hour before we were supposed to get started come into my office where it's a little more reliable of course the problem is it's much much worse in world communities so i think that's going to i think what this has shown not just the resilience of seniors generally but also i think it's going to impact their attitudes towards using these new techniques speaking to lawyers online as opposed to face-to-face being able to they might have been encouraged now to start to do shopping online banking online so a lot of things that they typically didn't do my guess is it's sort of this has been the thin edge of the wedge enabling them to wet their feet a little bit find out that they can do these things do them effectively and this will open up many many more opportunities so i think the research community has already started looking at this in survey research and uh will be interested to see over the coming years whether this really boosts helps to eliminate the digital uh the senior digital divide that we've seen so far that has fascinated me how the misperception and you even see it in some advertising is that again if you are over 50 you are cut off from all of these wonderful technological advancements like the the one ad that just drives me crazy where you know a group of folks they're probably in their 40s you know are uh you don't want to be like your parents and the guy says you know well you know i sent out this message was i i i don't know facetiming or something like that and everyone just sort of slaps their forehead like you idiot anyway uh Sheila sayo does this also open up new opportunities for people who know perhaps no longer have to physically go to a place like the senior center they can avail themselves of what you folks have cybernetically now absolutely it does it's just going to create options for people to make those choices whether they want to come in person or or do it from their home or from their vacation or from wherever they are but i do want to say i i think seniors are going to come back they're going to they're ready to get back out uh we are social beings um you know senior center services are essential what Yolanda and what uh the other senior living communities are doing i think you've seen the benefit of people being able to be around other people i want to you know highly highly commend i always brag about our aging network here locally in in Tallahassee Leon county it is strong these are caring people Yolanda can vouch for the senior living communities work together with each other with families when it comes time to make choices and and to do things together elder care services is a tremendous partner and we work hand in hand with them and Alzheimer project the kind of the three non-profit you know service agencies and then our you know our our other folks in the community have just been great to continue to support support senior services through this and i I'm encouraged and hopeful that our seniors here locally have maybe fared pretty well because of our network and because of how the community the strong community we have uh we have a strong coalition on aging that's uh facilitated by Lisa Brett's in the advantage aging solution so you know what Neil and them do we all work together and i really think that's why Tallahassee's such a great place to to be a senior great way to put it as we head into our final wrap-up here folks i'll give everyone just a minute if we can take that here for any final comments or thoughts that you might have Yolanda hue let's start with you over there at tapestry i'm gonna speak generally to all the als in Tallahassee because we do all work together in the best interest of our seniors um we will bounce you know hey this person fits great here and back and forth and because ultimately we want to see seniors happy and so i have just been really on a mission to share that moving into a community if you feel like you're ready and you want to pursue that option it is safe everyone's doing an excellent job with infection control and um i think you'll be pleasantly surprised at what's happening i always say nothing is perfect right because we don't live in a utopian world but if they give it a chance and they pursue you know that that community they've been eyeing it's it's time to go check it out because we have gotten to the point where we have things under control and if you want to get back into socializing socializing into a social setting um or if you're needing help don't stay at home alone there's options and i know it's been scary but it's okay you can take the leap and i say that just to any community you've been on looking at it's so important for our seniors to be safe and cared for in them be around other people i've been blessed that i work in alf because during this quarantine when i couldn't see my friends and family i could come you know and be with all these folks here thanks Yolanda Gail Matillo with the Florida senior living association you know it really is about the power of connection and we've done a fantastic job this year our communities you know like Yolanda talked about you know they've really thought out of the box and gotten very creative on um activities for seniors and also the outreach like Sheila's talking about you know without the senior center and without all of those options for seniors they would be really isolated but i think they've managed to do a really good job 87 percent of the seniors polled in assisted living communities said that they felt safe they felt they felt you know loved and uh they really appreciated the work that was done in our community so you know like i said we're not out of the words woods yet but i think we're living in a new normal and we will adjust and we'll all be better for it so thank you tom for inviting me to be on the show today thank you for being on Gail elder law attorney in Tallahassee twilight schedule your turn well i just want to say that i think that for all the bad that's happened in the past year i think that some really positive things have come out of this and i think that those positive things are going to move forward with us we've come up with innovative ways to make sure that everybody can participate and be connected uh you know i have homebound seniors who would never have participated in a senior uh center activity because they didn't think they could go there they now participate in senior center activities and if we can keep that going after all of this is you know slowed down that's a great resource that you know is just going to improve the quality of life for so many people and so that's what i think we need to take away whether it be you know the creative events that assisted living facilities do the stuff that the senior center does even my office we've come up with some innovative and creative ways to deliver legal services that we never would have thought of before and you know we're real proud of that so thanks twyla sure appreciate it dr neil charnes director of the institute for successful longevity at florida state okay i'm gonna end by saying uh the light is clear clearly shining at the end of the tunnel at this point as for a lot of the seniors who've already gotten vaccinated but i want to throw out a challenge to your listeners those of us who've been vaccinated and i would say seniors in particular have a really important role to play to encourage other members of our community to become vaccinated we have to reach out particularly to our our communities of color which have been very hard hit by this pandemic we have to reach out to everyone let them know it's safe let them know it's effective and let them know that if they can do their bet we're all going to be back together in large-scale meetings fairly soon hopefully as as Joe Biden put it by July in time for our our our celebrations love your challenge Dr. Neil let's wind up at the Tallahassee senior center with Sheila sound well thank you all so much um you know the Tennessee senior center has been really really fortunate to be part of the city of Tallahassee and the city and our leadership has just been really uh interested in seniors staying connected staying healthy providing all the resources and support that we can and to let everybody know we are exploring our options for trying to reopen and uh in a modified as safe as possible way and hopefully soon we'll be able to get something out and start getting some more people back in the door thanks so much Sheila and everyone thank you for being part of a very special perspectives here as we address the issues of senior response to some very weird times that we've all been going through thanks so much for being a part of it folks on perspectives which is produced by WFSU public media in Tallahassee thanks also to Taylor Cox Paul Dam Amy Diaz de Villegas Brandon Brown Trisha Moynihan and Lydell Rawls our director of content Kim Kelling who set everything up as executive director uh producer here and I'm Tom Flanigan hey one other thing the pandemic has done it has really put a stress test on a lot of our support mechanisms both public and private and very often a big problem with those mechanisms is they don't necessarily interconnect to provide more resources more effectively we're going to talk about that next week right here on perspectives from WFSU Public Media