• Sensitivity training will help you provide better care to an elderly person.elderly women image by leafy from Fotolia.com
  
  Participating in aging sensitivity training activities can help a caregiver recognize and cope with problems of an elderly relative or friend. Sensitivity activities help to dispel common misconceptions about the elderly and their needs. The activities can better prepare the caregiver to develop strategies and deal with dependency due to loss of physical abilities and inadequate financial resources. Aging simulation activities often help younger people understand the physical limitations that frustrate elderly people.
  
  

Reduced Coordination

• To simulate stiff joints, reduced coordination and sensitivity in the hands, participants will wear masking tape and large latex gloves. Tape the knuckles of each participant to reduce the ability to close the hand into a fist without feeling uncomfortable. The knuckles should feel stiff with flexibility limited. Place a pair of large rubber gloves on each participant, and ask each to perform a simple task: buttoning and folding a shirt. Limit the participants to 30 seconds to complete the task. Give each participant a deck of cards and tell them to shuffle and deal the cards to play a game of Solitaire. Give the participants 30 seconds to complete this task. The gloves and the stiff joints make it difficult for the participants to perform the tasks in the time allowed. This activity simulates the difficulty elderly people encounter when performing common tasks.
  
  

Vision and Hearing Loss

• Give each participant a pair of glasses covered with opaque tape and a wallet containing play currency and plastic coins. Place cotton balls in the ears of each and a few kernels of popcorn in their shoes. The cotton will simulate hearing loss and the popcorn will make it uncomfortable to stand in a long line when suffering from corns on the feet. Have participants line up in an imaginary check-out line. While they are still wearing the gloves and with their knuckles still taped, ask participants to pay a certain amount for their purchases. The participant must open the wallet and identify the correct amount of money to pay for the purchases. The other participants role-play irritated shoppers who hurry the participants and complain when they are slow. The participant must pick up any dropped currency or coins. The glasses simulate the diminished vision of a person with cataracts and the frustration experienced by the elderly who have diminished vision. Don't allow participants to help each other. Limit each person to 30 seconds to produce the correct amount of money to pay.
  
  

Making a Phone Call

• Have participants try to make a phone call. Give each a large city telephone book and a cell phone. While still wearing their gloves, tape and glasses, they must find a particular business telephone number book and ask about the hours of operation for the business. When participants think they have found the telephone number, they must dial it correctly. Telephone directories have very thin pages and extremely small print. Turning pages is difficult with diminished movement and loss of sensitivity in the fingers. Most participants will have a great deal of difficulty reading the book while wearing their cataract glasses. Give each participant 30 seconds to find the number and 15 seconds to dial it correctly.