Video Calls With Older Adults: Practical Tips

Many families try a video call, run into technical problems or awkward silences, and give up on it as an option. With a few simple adjustments, video calls can become a routine that's genuinely enjoyed on both ends.

Before the call

• Coordinate a fixed weekly time, rather than calling 'whenever' — predictability helps a lot.
• Ask community staff to help set up the device before the agreed time.
• Use a simple app, with few buttons and large text, if the family member isn't very tech-savvy.

During the call

Speak a bit more slowly than usual, leave pauses for them to process and respond, and avoid overly open-ended questions ('so, what's new?') that tend to produce short answers. Concrete questions ('what did you have for lunch today?', 'did you join the afternoon workshop?') lead to longer, more natural conversations.

Showing something — a recent photo, the grandkids, the pet — also helps hold attention better than just talking in front of the camera.

When the video call isn't enough

A weekly video call is valuable, but it doesn't replace knowing how daily life is going between one call and the next. Complementing it with daily photos and updates — something some communities already offer through apps — greatly reduces the anxiety of 'not knowing' on the days without direct contact. This connects with why daily communication improves well-being at senior living communities, beyond the one-off video call.

And if video calls aren't part of the routine yet, this article on how to stay in touch with a family member at a senior living community has more ideas to get started.

Why the pace of the conversation needs to adjust

With age, it's common for information-processing time to slow down somewhat — not because there's less capacity to understand, but because the brain needs a bit more time to take in what it hears and put together a response. If the family talks fast, changes topics often, or fills in silences that are actually a normal part of processing, the older person can feel overwhelmed or simply disconnect from the conversation, which then gets mistakenly read as disinterest or cognitive decline. Slowing the pace down, sitting with brief silences instead of filling them right away, and confirming the message came through are simple adjustments that greatly improve the real quality of the exchange.

It's also worth accounting for sensory changes: hearing and vision loss, very common in older age, can make a video call exhausting if the volume is low, the screen is small, or there's background noise. Using headphones, increasing text and image size, and choosing a quiet space on the older person's end — something community staff can help with — makes a noticeable difference in how much the call is enjoyed, beyond any conversational tip.

The right not to be excluded by technology

Technology anxiety — the discomfort or avoidance of devices perceived as complicated — is real and common among people who didn't grow up surrounded by screens, and shouldn't be treated as a whim or a personal limitation to overcome without help. Staying in touch with family is part of anyone's right to family and social life, at any stage of life, and that right shouldn't depend on how comfortable the older person feels with technology. That's why the responsibility for making a video call work well falls both on choosing simple tools and on active support from staff or family to get past the initial barrier — not solely on the older person's willingness to 'learn to use it.'

Bringing other generations into the call

Video calls that include grandchildren or great-grandchildren tend to generate a different kind of energy than calls between two adults: kids bring naturalness, simple questions, and an enthusiasm that often holds attention better than any planned conversation technique. Coordinating for a grandchild to show a drawing, talk about something from school, or just wave hello for a moment can turn a routine call into one of the best moments of the week for both the person receiving it and the person making it.

On the technical side, it also helps to plan for hiccups: having a backup phone number in case the video connection fails, and not relying on a single device or app if the community offers more than one option. The frustration of a call that won't connect can discourage the next attempt, so minimizing technical obstacles is worth the upfront time investment to set things up properly once.

Choosing the right time based on the person's routine

The best time for a video call isn't the most convenient one for whoever is calling, but the one that best fits the older person's routine and energy level. Right after eating, many older adults go through a natural period of drowsiness; mid-morning or mid-afternoon, after some activity, there's usually more energy and willingness to hold a smooth conversation. Coordinating with community staff on the best time of day for that particular person avoids calls that end up short and unsatisfying simply because of bad timing, not a lack of desire to talk.

With practice, almost every family that pushes through a bit at the start ends up finding the format that works best for their particular case. The first video call is rarely the best one — what matters is sticking with it patiently until finding that rhythm, instead of writing off the whole tool because of one awkward first experience.

Involving community staff in this trial-and-adjustment process, telling them what worked and what didn't in previous calls, also helps: they're the ones present on the other end of every call and can make small adjustments — volume, lighting, time of day — that the family, from a distance, can't always anticipate on their own.

Palermia makes it easy to coordinate video calls and visits directly with the community, on top of sharing photos and updates every day. See how it works.