Telephony Or Videophony for Isolated elDerly in Maine-Et-Loire 49 During COVID-19

The current health crisis at COVID-19 is forcing us to profoundly rethink our social organizations, especially towards our most fragile seniors. Prohibitions on visits to Nursing Homes and care services, although essential to control the epidemic, are also becoming a major source of social isolation and loneliness for these fragile populations. The only source of residual social ties during a period of confinement remains dematerialised communication via the various existing communication channels (in particular telephone calls or video telephony).

As soon as the COVID-19 crisis began and the first visiting restrictions were imposed on patients in the geriatric department of the Angers Univesity Hospital and the Retirement Home / long-term care unit, acute care geriatric unit of Angers offered patients and residents the opportunity to organize communication with their relatives via videophone calls. Initial feedback from the field shows us that, contrary to our intuition, patients and residents are not necessarily asking for communication to the outside world and, when they are, the preferred channel is not necessarily video telephony but often a simple phone call with relatives. Even though the vast majority of projects aimed at setting up communication aids for the elderly now rely on videophonic support, these initial observations in everyday care situations raise questions about the directions taken in this area. Also, the investigators ask themselves the following question: in the absence of a physical meeting, what is the preferred means of communication for elderly people in isolation in hospital or in Retirement Home? This study will make it possible to propose the most appropriate solutions for breaking isolation for the hospitalized or institutionalized geriatric population in order to limit as much as possible the increase in social isolation imposed by restrictions on movement during epidemics.