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Could a gaming PC be a good thing in a nursing home? (lemmy.world)

submitted 5 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Recently talked to a 90+ year old man in a park in front of his nursing home, guy is a former RC plane enthusiast. Can't do anything now because of his age, though. Bored all the time, sitting in the park is his highlight.

Thinking of donating an old gaming PC that can somewhat run the Microsoft flight simulator. Would that be a good idea? Can the average 80-90 year old use that at all, just speaking sensorically and motor skill wise?

Are there any other thoughts you have on that idea?

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[–] [email protected] 14 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Sounds like a great idea - I suspect the biggest obstacle will be finding someone at the home who is confident enough in what to do with it to be willing to accept it.

I've run into similar issues with schools where they are hesitant to accept donations of things like that because they don't want to be saddled with equipment they don't know how to use and maintain. Maybe worth seeing if you can raise a bit of money for a second hand Xbox or something?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Yes, I've thought about the issue as well. I've thought about offering to maintain that single PC myself. A console could be a good idea, though! Not sure about accessibility/variety of input methods (and variety of games, I thought Steam could be best)

[–] [email protected] 11 points 5 months ago (1 children)

You should be aware that “maintaining” that PC may be more than you expect. Just this weekend I had to help my aunt because the bank’s website had a “big thing in front of it” that she couldn’t get rid of. It turned out to be a cookie banner that was just a bit too big for her laptop screen, and the buttons to close it were out of the frame.

That’s just an example of course, but depending on the person(s) using it, there may need to be someone at hand to help at all times.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago

My college had software that would revert the pc to an image after each reboot, saves sent to a remote location, this could work here as windows has a monthly update schedule and steam has cloud saves. At the beginning it will be a lot of setup/install/re-image but as time goes by less intervention should be needed