Having “meaningful engagement in life” can improve one’s mood, thinking, and, ultimately, health, but older adults can lose some of that engagement in retirement.
A new collaboration between the Penn Memory Center and Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) offers a solution through the Building Bridges Intergenerational Program, which was recently featured in The Philadelphia Inquirer.
The program brings together older adults, some with cognitive impairment, as volunteers to read to or play with CHOP patients.
The volunteers “really enjoy working with the kids and seeing their faces light up,” said Megan Fucci, a PMC clinical social worker. “I hear all the time, ‘I wish I could take pictures,’ because they want to remember it.”
Click here to read the Inquirer story on the program.