Heliopolis Elderly Center

If you spent time over the holidays with elderly relatives or friends, you may have heard many of the same stories repeated — perhaps stories you’d heard over the years, or even over the past few hours.

Repeated storytelling can sometimes be unnerving for friends and families, raising concerns about a loved one’s potential cognitive decline, memory loss or perhaps even the onset of dementia.

Here at the Heliopolis Elderly Center our classes and research suggests there is another way to think about repeated storytelling that makes it easier to listen and engage with the stories. 

We had a semester of classes with continues into the New Year of 2025 where we used a narrative inquiry approach to discover that repeated storytelling is a key method for elders to communicate what they believe to be important to their children and loved ones. Narrative inquiry uses the text of stories as research data to explore how people create meaning in their lives.

Another tool that we used was theatre and costumes to finalize their final storytelling presentation. 

Storytelling is an essential human process and a universal experience associated with aging. Neuroscientists suggest that storytelling has practical survival value for individuals and communities, as well as social and psychological benefits.

It may be as powerful as medication or therapy for overcoming depression among elders. Storytelling becomes especially important when people become aware of their mortality — when they are ill, suffering or facing death.

People don’t necessarily tell the same stories over and over again because they’re losing cognitive function, but because the stories are important, and they feel we need to know them. Telling stories repeatedly isn’t about forgetfulness or dementia. It’s an effort to share what’s important.

Our hope is that by better understanding elderly storytelling, family members may be able to listen in a different way to those repeated stories and understand the messages they contain.

We enjoy offering these lessons and hope that you will contribute to our project.

Links:

• Instituto Velho Amigo

With the continuing advancement of digitalization of everyday life, digital literacy has become increasingly necessary. As a consequence, those who are digitally illiterate experience digital exclusion, which increasingly equals social exclusion. Older adults are typically less digitally active and less skilled in digital technologies than younger cohorts. At the Heliopolis Older Persons Center, we offer EJA—Education for Young People and Adults.

As an example, our student, Maria, is a 65-year-old person who has been enrolled at the Instituto Velho Amigo since 2022 and has various health issues. She currently uses a pacemaker, which has already been replaced twice, is hypertensive, and is investigating issues with her kidneys with the medical team. Maria reports that she feels a lot of pain in her spine due to years of work, as she had to work hard to support her three children on her own and, therefore, found very few opportunities to learn to read and write.

However, we argue that expectations of digital literacy should be lowered for older adults with no preexisting digital experience with computers, the Internet, smartphones, or tablets. Even entry-level, basic digital, or foundational skills can be very demanding for older adults with limited or no prior knowledge of and practice with digital technologies.

Dona Maria has been attending the EJA—Education for Young People and Adults—for about a year, but she still needs to be literate. When she started participating in the Education Project workshops at the Instituto Velho Amigo, she had a lot of trouble writing her name. She said that throughout her life, she hadn't found anyone with the patience and dedication to teach her. So, she believed that she could no longer learn to write and read due to her age and the lack of support.

In this way, the older adult was strongly encouraged and motivated to attend the Education Project workshops. Starting in March, a target of two months was set for her to learn to write her name by herself. Previously, she had been missing many workshops due to her health issues and lack of motivation.

He hasn't been absent so far. On a recent occasion, he came to the Literacy workshop with the flu, claiming that even though he was ill, he didn't want to miss the opportunity to learn.

During the Reading Club with coffee workshops, she had her first real interaction with a book: "Malala, the girl who wanted to go to school." She is learning to enjoy interacting with books, poems, and biographies of inspiring people. The contact with technological resources, such as typing on a notebook and tablet, was unprecedented, contributing highly to her motivation and learning.

With her more active participation here at the institute, we've made significant progress in writing her name; she's more confident and autonomous, inspiring other older adults to remain assiduous in the learning process, and she invited two older adults to take part in the Reading Club with coffee workshops because she says that during the workshops it's possible to find a different kind of attention and welcome from other places that promote literacy classes for older people.

Links:

• Instituto Velho Amigo - Heliopolis Elderly Center