Senior Wellness 2017-2018 by: Nana Adwoa Bamfo, Janny Dinh, Neel Duggal, Joanna Goldfarb, Charlyn Gomez, Yelim Lee, Shefali Patel, Adam Ricker, and Lorena Segarra Project: What We Did and How We Did It
Introduction
● Use fun and interactive activities to enhance learning and build
The Senior Wellness team benefited from a wide range of backgrounds, skills, experiences, and perspectives this year. It consisted of several public health students, including three undergraduates, in addition to two medical students as well as a few nursing students we had the special opportunity to work with early in the semester. Our community partner sites included St. Mary’s Court, located only a few blocks away in Foggy Bottom, and Sibley Plaza, which is situated on the edge of the NoMa neighborhood in central D.C. St. Mary’s Court is a living facility for individuals over the age of 62 or with accessibility needs. It receives federal financial assistance to provide housing to low- and moderate-income persons. Many residents at St. Mary’s are active in and out of the Court, and most are always eager to socialize with each other and us. Sibley Plaza is a public housing residence operated by the DC Housing Authority for low-income seniors and individuals with disabilities. The senior residents at this site are accustomed to engaging with many outside organizations and are thus open and eager to learn from us through organized activities.
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(Above) Charlyn helps St. Mary’s Court residents, Patricia and Connie, plant the seeds for lifelong wellness.
(Above) Another satisfied St. Mary’s Court resident shows off her elegantly decorated and neatly labeled potted plants!
● It is no different for our communities, in which overwhelmingly the most common concern was the lack of nutritious meal options.
Asking, listening, and adapting were the key components to our success! Ask: What topics are our communities interested in? Where is there a need for more information? Listen: No lectures; just dialogue. Adapt: Adjust activities to fit the needs of our community, at that time, at that place.
Our Senior Wellness team learned that focusing on effective communication, whether it is among us ourselves, or between us and those we are serving, is very important in achieving the goals we are working toward as a team. Each of us brought our own strengths and unique experiences to the implementations and group trainings. For example, our handouts were made as a collaboration between a former medical writer and a public health student with graphic design experience. Our implementations were developed by a diverse set of team members, each of whom contributed unique ideas ranging from cognitive enhancement games to diabetes management to artistic vegetable planting. Being aware of what your teammates are capable of and taking advantage of everyone’s skillsets will set your team up for all-around success. ISCOPES has taught us to be more cognizant of others. When working with a new community, it is important to familiarize yourself with the nuances of their lives that form their unique perspectives and habits. As future public health professionals and medical providers, we gained important experience working more directly with individuals. These real-world lessons we learned during this journey will ultimately contribute to a greater competency in interacting and communicating with clients and patients, respectively.
Acknowledgments
● Furthermore, physical activity is equally as beneficial to older adults as it is to anyone else, yet less than 60% of the elderly population engages in PA.
Consequently, there are many areas in the realm of health and wellness in which the older communities we are working with are clearly being underserved.
During our site visits, our projects were focused on increasing awareness of different topics including: ○ Physical activity and diet ○ Heart, bone, and mental health In our implementations, we worked on a variety of activities to both engage and educate the residents. ○ Arts and crafts ○ Meaningful conversations with instructional handouts ○ Gardening ○ Games
● The most impactful changes one can make with regard to one’s health are those that lead to better nutrition and increased physical activity (PA).
● Being strong and active is of particular importance to this age group due to the impact it has on the prevention of not only chronic diseases, but also of falls – the leading cause of injury among the elderly.
strong relationships with residents. Maintain an open line of communication among team members – this is crucial to the success of a learning community! Learning community members should conduct a “trial run” of planned activities prior to implementation at site. Schedule weekly meetings to keep everyone up to date and to track progress. Find ways to help! Supporting the team in other ways is vital when you cannot make it to a site implementation.
What We Learned
● Older adults are at higher risk of chronic disease, and the most common conditions to affect this population are heart disease, diabetes, stroke, and cancer – all of which are preventable to an extent.
● Maintaining the proper diet is key to the prevention of chronic diseases. Seniors have different nutritional needs than all other age groups, but this fact is often overlooked, and as a result, this population is particularly vulnerable to malnutrition.
Recommendations
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(Above) Beautiful and functional! Growing our own vegetables proves to be a popular (and eventually, delicious) activity at St. Mary’s Court.
Our clients became more aware of a variety of health issues they are more susceptible to due to their older age, including: diabetes management, Vitamin D deficiency, and osteoporosis. This year we focused on identifying new food options which fell in line with our health teachings for the week so they could take the information we gave them and apply it to their lives, resulting in a positive change in their behavior. During our time at Sibley, we saw the food items we recommended become a part of residents’ regular diet, and the more we introduced them to new foods, the more new foods they wanted to try!
We would like to thank our team advocate, Taylor Walter, our team coach, Camille Range, for guiding us through this entire process and contributing to the work we did with our community partner sites just as much as we did. We could not have done it without their leadership and guidance. We would also like to thank our site partners at St. Mary’s Court and Sibley Plaza for opening their doors to us and the residents for participating in our activities and learning with us. We would also like to thank ISCOPES, its respective leadership team, and George Washington University for allowing us this unique opportunity and providing us with the necessary resources.
Neel guides our client in an awesome activity.
Joelle poses with two happy seniors after enjoying some light conversation and even lighter snacks.
Our layout of healthy and adventurous snacks – our most popular attraction!