Dr. Chip Teel’s message to a crowd gathered at St. Columba’s on October 17 was a simple one: Aging at home can be made easier with the help of technology and senior volunteers.

Teel was in Boothbay as the first speaker in the Boothbay Region Health and Wellness Foundation’s Third Thursday series.

Teel is a regular featured speaker and champion of an elder empowerment movement and company, Full Circle America, which he said grew out of monthly meetings that began in Damariscotta seven years ago.

He calls the Full Circle home-care program “high tech and high touch” because it relies on both remote connection via in-home cameras, computers and other devices, as well as volunteers who provide companionship and help solve day-to-day, non-medical problems.

With America’s rising elderly population, there will not be enough caregivers nor enough dollars to support a nursing home approach to addressing the problems of aging, Teel said.

Remote technology and personal care provided by volunteers can match the care provided in nursing homes at a fraction of the cost. “We need to fundamentally change the way we do elder care,” he said.

Technology and volunteers can also help offset loneliness and isolation, which can be significant deterrents to health and longevity.

“Most older people have very few visitors,” Teel said. “They need way more social interactions than the norm. Loneliness is dangerous.”

In a two-hour program, Teel outlined how his company and volunteers have allowed many elders to stay in their own homes and created a reciprocal network of caregivers.

“We need to turn the demographics around. Look at the huge cohort of seniors looking to be useful,” Teel said. “ We need to harness the talent of this age group to do something for someone else.”

Although the technological solutions Teel proposes may be novel, the concept of elder volunteers is not a new one for this region. Virtually every nonprofit or other charitable organization on the Boothbay peninsula already runs on senior volunteers.

At the invitation of Health and Wellness Foundation President Patty Seybold, Susan Wilson, president of Boothbay Region Community Resources, outlined the myriad ways local BRCR volunteers, many elderly themselves, provide food, clothing, heat, transportation, school supplies, housing, as well as health and social services at no cost to the community.

Wilson said that existing organizations already rely on senior volunteers and she is concerned that another effort might draw down that volunteer base.

“Many of our volunteers are aging,” Wilson wrote in an email after the meeting. “Some who have volunteered from the beginning are now in need of services themselves.”

Seybold said a second meeting to follow up on Teel’s presentation is planned for Thursday, Oct. 31 at 7 p.m. at the Boothbay Town Office. The meeting is open to all who are interested.

“Our game plan is to form a local group,” Seybold said. “We’d like people to know that there is a lot of interest in this concept and we are moving forward.
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