Are you thinking of improving the senior residency you work at or manage? One way to instantly generate interest and benefit residents is by adding a 3D printer. Below, we’ll show how a 3D printer can help a retirement community!
Offer a Mindful Activity
A 3D printer is exciting technology and a great tool for intriguing and stimulating seniors’ minds. Retirement community members often have a lot of free time to fill, but a 3D printer can give seniors a great mental exercise that challenges their creativity.
Those who love crafting, engineering, and tinkering will have a tool they can experiment with frequently, leading to a new hobby of crafting 3D models and sculptures. Retirees will also love admiring the impressive advancements in technology that allow a 3D sculpture to form before their eyes in minutes.
Print Helpful Tools
Another way a 3D printer can help a retirement community is through the potential to print all kinds of helpful tools, aids, and gadgets for retirees. Many arthritis patients and other seniors with ailments have used 3D printers to create simple but useful aids, such as the following:
- Adaptive eating utensils
- Key holders
- Pill splitters
- Sock aids
Instead of paying for adaptive tools online or going to a store, seniors can print many of the same items with 3D printing for cheaper, faster, and more conveniently. Seniors and community managers will be amazed at the useful gadgets one 3D printer can make!
Connect With Youth
A 3D printer is also a great opportunity for seniors to bond with younger people, like their children and grandchildren, over a shared activity. With such an age gap, sharing interests with young children can be difficult for retirees, but working with a 3D printer is interesting and exciting to people of all ages!
There are many simple 3D printing projects to try with kids, from toys to dinosaur models. Residents of the retirement community can brainstorm designs with kids, spending hours crafting a 3D print and bonding over the hobby.
Conclusion
As you can see, a senior community could benefit from having a 3D printer on the premises in many ways. A 3D printer is an excellent tool for stimulating the creative mind, printing helpful senior aids, and providing a great activity to share with others.
