Old Age Solutions - Website Review

Old Age Solutions
http://www.oldagesolutions.org/

Old Age Solutions is website promoted by Ministry of S&T and developed
by All India Institute of Medical Sciences. Started in December 2008,
as the name suggests, it is a portal for providing technology
solutions for the elderly. There are five major sections: Recreation
and Entertainment, Health, Assistive Devices, Design and Environment
and lastly Facilities. It is available in English Hindi and Tamil.
Tamil fonts are not user friendly though the contents are highly
beneficial. Even Tamil in Tamil on the Home page is not spelt
correctly!

There is a "Resources" section giving info on contributors,
consultants in the area of Assistive and Enabling Devices, Consultants
in S&T interventions for elders etc. A separate section attempts to
offer news items relating to seniors from news papers. There is also a
blog attached to the site. But it has only 14 posts by three
contributors in one year and only 7 followers. As I surf the web
continuously for Ageing and Elders related info, I can say that the
blog can be made more useful by inviting more contributors from
public. For instance I can site a news based blog in India
(seniorworldchronicle) maintained by a single individual where the
number of entries (posts) crosses 4000 per year!

I found the section on Assistive Devices extremely useful and
informative. Similarly the availability of entire Old Age Directory of
HelpAge 2009 as a searchable pdf file is invaluable. The sitemap,
graphics, color and the navigation in website design in particular are
all appreciable.

The suggestions sent via Suggestions option are never replied. There
is a one page Guidelines for contributors stating that submissions of
a 1000 word story / article will be remunerated at Rs 1000/- per
piece. I wonder why they are unable to attract contributions. Much of
the info provided at the time of launching the website (for example
facilities, schemes etc) remain as such without updating.

This well intended portal may become mainstay for most seniors and
SCAs if properly maintained and updated frequently.