Learning while in hospital.

Lifelong learning for all is a declared policy aim of the European Union and its member states. One group of adults has been denied access to learning, though: Patients who are forced to spend a longer period at hospital due to severe or chronic illness. The potential benefits of learning activities during hospitalisation are undisputable:

Learning

• helps coping with isolation
• opens a window to the outside world
• eases reintegration into normal life
• and thus potentially contributes to patients’ mental and physical convalescence.

Why e-learning?

Computer-assisted learning has a great potential in this specific educational context. Hospital patients are restricted in their mobility and can therefore profit from being independent on the time-space coordinates of conventional face-to-face learning. Social interaction and joint learning activities with peers become possible with the help of virtual tools.