Anyone walking past the Santa Clarita Valley Senior Center Wednesday afternoon could hear the echo of John Denver’s “Take Me Home, Country Roads” sung by high school students, seniors, and anyone in between those age ranges.
In an effort to reduce cognitive decline, incoming West Ranch High School sophomore Ryleigh Getz and Trinity Classical Academy sophomore Xander Graham, both 15 years old, started Technology Literacy to enhance Cognition.
Otherwise known as TLC, the students volunteer at local senior facilities, with curated lesson plans, to help mitigate dementia and improve cognitive health.
Their mothers, Erin Getz, a cardiac nurse practitioner, and Quynh Graham, an anesthesiologist, have been friends for the majority of their kids’ lifetime, and have helped advise the initiative.
“So we started about six months ago, and this is an idea that was fostered trying to help the community. My mother-in-law suffers from dementia, and so Ryleigh and Xander got together, and we thought this would be a great service,” Erin said. “So we’ve been going to different facilities to help the elders improve brain health and mitigate dementia through the use of video games, smart devices, etcetera.”
To break the ice, the founders, as well as their friends who volunteer with them, started the session with karaoke, before introducing themselves and putting the seniors into smaller groups to show them how to use their devices, such as phones.
“There’s a variety of seniors [we work with], higher functioning. We’ve been in memory care clinics as well. Depending on the population, we alter the types of games we play. We’ve done ‘Family Feud,’ ‘Who Wants to Be a Millionaire,’ and then karaoke is always a fun one for everybody,” Erin said.
Xander and Ryleigh may have the support of their mothers as they support local elders, but they are also paving the way for the next generation.
“Me and Ryleigh thought about it for a long time. We were talking about our grandparents, and we had the idea of helping other people with their technology, because they have hard times with it,” Xander said. “I would like to go into the medical field, and I feel that this is a good building block for that.”
According to Xander and Ryleigh, the team tries to go to a senior facility once a week, cultivating relationships with the seniors who may have gone long stretches without seeing their own grandchildren.
“I thought this was a good idea because my grandma in Pennsylvania has dementia, and I barely get to visit her. It’s good to bring it to Santa Clarita and help old people with technology and playing games with them,” Ryleigh said. “They always talk to us about their lives and their families, and they show us photos of their families because they live far away and they don’t get to visit.”
Quynh discussed tailoring the games to each population’s needs, while reflecting on the teenagers’ indirect impact.
“We, as the advisors, really try to have a meeting every single time to see what the needs of the seniors are. There’s a lot of prep time that comes before a session. In mentoring the kids, we know that Baby Boomers are the biggest population that’s aging, and they’re high functioning. A lot of them don’t drive — every single population has a different need, but there is definitely a need of improving cognition, memory, executive function in these populations on a different level,” Quynh said. “I think that the teenagers bring a special spark to the seniors.”
While Ryleigh and Xander began this initiative with their own families in mind, with the help of their families, they look forward to forming relationships with more seniors as TLC grows.
