Maintaining Connection Critical During COVID-19

NASHVILLE, Tenn. - March 15, 2020 - PRLog -- With the imperative need to contain COVID-19, experts are telling us to stay home, avoid contact with crowds, and essentially isolate ourselves. That's a good idea. But what about our need for connection?

"Hospitals are closing to visitors, employers are mandating telecommuting, churches are offering alternate ways to worship, and schools are sending students home to learn online," says Elizabeth Power, a nationally recognized expert in trauma. "What about people in residential facilities? What about the social isolation?"

The National Institute of Aging reports research links social isolation and loneliness to increased risk for conditions like heart disease, obesity, a weakened immune system, anxiety, depression and more.

"Situations that are already stressful, like pandemics, raise the risk for everyone for these maladies," says Power. "And for people in residential care, impacted by things like Nashville's tornados, recently bereaved, childless, folks who are ill or people 60 and up? The disconnection from relationships and connection is even tougher."

Power's Trauma Informed Academy helps people learn ways to deeply understand and respond to this kind of catastrophic event. The short courses the Academy offers arm caregivers, relatives and health professionals with valuable knowledge and skills to create better outcomes for those individuals at risk of the dangerous health implications due to social isolation during the COVED-19 pandemic.

Nashville-based Power is an Adjunct Instructor in Psychiatry at Georgetown Medical Center and the Founder of The Trauma Informed Academy. She focuses on virtual coaching, learning and consulting for those dealing with the very real consequences of social distancing and isolation and other traumatic events.

"We have in some ways forgotten 'neighboring' skills," she says, "which we need all the more during stressful times. We are still learning how to be kind virtual friends and neighbors."

The Trauma Informed Academy offers free materials (http://thetraumainformedacademy.com/connections) (link: http://thetraumainformedacademy.com/connections)  with ways people stay away and stay connected during the coming weeks. Additionally, the Academy hosts regular webinars offering conversation and connection.

The most vital responses to this pandemic are to hand wash, use hand sanitizer when available and socially distance yourself from any large gathering. But the comforting behaviors of a virtual touch, an understanding conversation, an ear to listening to those who are lonely and afraid are important as we weather this storm together.

For information or to schedule interviews, contact Elizabeth Power, elizabeth@tiatrs.com, 615-714-6389.