Conflicts frequently arise in supporting older adults – whether it is negotiating living space, daily activities, health care, or dealing with home care agencies and insurers.
As a result, supporters of older adults often experience frustration, anxiety, and stress as they deal with these conflicts. Just thinking about these conflicts adds to the burden. Unfortunately, most supporters of older adults are vastly underprepared to handle these conflicts.
I have the same frustrating argument with my mom over and over again — we keep going around in circles!
NegotiAge is an innovative Negotiation and Dispute Resolution training intervention that has been rigorously designed to align with geriatric conflicts.
This is the first training program to focus on teaching negotiation skills to supporters of older adults. Everyone is busy and supporters of older adults are often pulled in many directions. Through artificial intelligence and avatar-based negotiation exercises, NegotiAge is innovative in that learning can occur anytime and anywhere.
A national team led by Dr. Lee Lindquist, Chief of Geriatrics at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine, including business school professors, older adult supporters, social workers, researchers, and computer and human science interactions scientists developed NegotiAge.
Ultimately, the concepts learned through NegotiAge can lead to meaningful improvement in communication between older adults, supporters of older adults, and their health care providers.