GARDEN GROVE : Elderly Feel Magic Touch of Toddlers

Ruth Filteau held 9-month-old Riley Scott as he lounged comfortably in her lap, sucking his fingers and watching other tots toddle across the floor.

“Feel the skin, it feels so good!” said Filteau, 77, caressing Riley’s dimpled knees. “Oh, they are such a beautiful bunch of kids. I’d like to take him home with me.”

Filteau and other clients of Garden Grove Community Adult Day Services were treated Friday to a morning of babies. Half a dozen toddlers and infants giggled, gurgled and played--to the delight of a dozen senior citizens.

“They always respond so well to babies, even though some of them don’t respond to many things anymore,” said Julie Duarte, assistant director of the center, which serves senior citizens disabled by strokes, heart disease, Alzheimer’s or hearing and visual impairments.

The occasional presence of small children in the past had so charmed clients that the staff planned Friday’s visit of babies en masse.

“You see a lot of smiles when there’s little kids around,” Duarte said.

The benefits of such a visit go far beyond recreation. Kaaren Douglas, director of the geriatrics program at UC Irvine, said such an event provides a critical dose of human contact for senior citizens.

“The element of touch is so important for all of us human beings, and elderly people don’t get much of it,” she said. “Even in loving families we often forget to touch the elderly.”

Studies on contact between elderly people and pets, for instance, have demonstrated that touching an animal improves a person’s health, heightens his or her ability to interact and even releases brain chemicals that have a calming effect, Douglas said.

“It’s probably similar if you hold a small child,” Douglas said. “There is the benefit of the human contact. Babies feel nice, they’re soft, they’re non-judgmental and very accepting. It would be good for the baby and for the older person.”

The youngsters, too, seemed to be enjoying themselves. Joshua Huitt, 2, of Anaheim squealed gleefully as he batted a beach ball against Roselyn Angell’s head. Angell, 66, said the young visitors rejuvenate their hosts.

Mothers of the infants moved around the room offering clients a turn at holding the babies. A troop of 2-year-olds, meanwhile, frolicked on the floor.

The toddlers pounced on beach balls and shimmied to kiddie tunes.

Natasha Riendt of Orange and Jacob Doty of Long Beach, both 2 1/2, linked hands and twirled to the music. The room broke out in peals of laughter when, in a modified two-step number, Natasha daintily raised her skirt to show off her diaper.

Meanwhile, Florence Peters cradled Jacob’s 4-month-old brother, Adam, who scanned the room placidly as he leaned his head against Peters, 72.

“They’re a lot of fun,” Peters said. “It’s nice to have babies to hold once in a while.”