Elders are among more than 90 people who have learned computing at Dock Woods Retirement Community in Lansdale, Pa., through GoL.
2002 MIND ALERT AWARDS HONOR FOUR BRAIN-BOOSTING PROGRAMS
Winners of the 2002 MindAlert Awards include a program to give elders--especially minorities and those with low incomes--free online access; a continuing care retirement community that is not only located at a college but gets elders back to class; and two approaches to mind stimulation, one for normally functional elders and one for those with early-stage Alzheimer's disease. The awards are sponsored by MetLife Foundation and the American Society on Aging (ASA). Bestowed for the second year, the awards are given in three categories to recognize programs that enhance cognitive functioning in later life.
The honors are being presented at the 2002 Joint Conference of the National Council on the Aging and the American Society on Aging, held in Denver, April 47. Each category carries a $1,500 award and the opportunity to speak at a Mind Alert symposium and to showcase the winning program at a program exchange at the conference. Each awardee also receives a one-year complimentary membership in ASA and in the association's Lifetime Education and Renewal Network (LEARN) constituent group. Judging was conducted by a distinguished panel of nine national experts in older adult learning, mental acuity and the science of the aging brain.
Generations on Line (GoL), based in Philadelphia, is one of two programs that shared honors in the category for outstanding innovative older adult learning programs. Launched nationally in September 2000, this nonprofit program in its first year brought computer access--and digital literacy--to more than 3,000 people age 65 or older who are located in 36 states. The oldest user is age 99. To date, the GoL program has been installed in 316 nursing homes, senior centers, subsidized housing developments, retirement communities and public libraries that pay a nominal of $350 for the software, startup materials and technical support.
Elders are among more than 90 people who have learned computing at Dock Woods Retirement Community in Lansdale, Pa., through GoL. |
GoL's software, tested over 12 months, enables even computer-illiterate elders to learn how to use the Internet, she said. In the program's first 18 months, about 1,800 elders set up e-mail accounts, logged 12,400 e-mails and performed more then 30,000 information searches in 25 languages. Among the program's users, Dichter recalled a Chinese resident of a public housing site for older adults. Qin Gao, of Philadelphia, who does not speak English, told Dichter through an interpreter that her new ability to read Chinese news online each day "was the most wonderful thing that had happened to her since she came here."
Although the basic computer instruction is in plain English, elders who do not speak English, like Gao, learn through peer coaching, which GoL promotes both directly and by distributing pamphlets and posters that encourage participants to act as buddies. Dichter explained that "once an elder knows how to point and click on the big "Look It Up" block at the top of our screen, the person can enter a word and get results in many languages." She added that at Gao's federally subsidized housing complex, the American Postal Worker's House, "we even loaded the proper Chinese dialect."
GoL, which is based at the University of Pennsylvania's Institute of Aging, also has established an intergenerational program. For example, in Philadelphia, in Bucks County, Pa., and in Chicago, children ages 912 in seven classes in four schools and in a library summer program created an oral history dialogue with elders through a special chat room.
Contact Dichter at (215) 922-3244 or tobeydichter@att.net, or visit the GoL website at www.generationsonline.org.
GoL's cowinner in the category for innovative older adult learning programs is Lasell Village, a nonprofit continuing care retirement community located on the campus of Lasell College in Newton, Mass. It is the first college-owned retirement complex in the United States to feature a required program of individualized continuing education for its residents. It also is the first to appoint an academic dean to oversee "living and learning" programs. According to Dean Paula Panchuck, each of the more than 200 mostly upper-middle-class residents must complete 450 hours of learning activity per year. (Residents with serious health problems are exempt.)
The learning program--operating with an annual budget of a quarter-million dollars during its first year in 20002001--offered more than 50 on-site courses and seminars, and 150 cultural events, lectures, forums and trips, Panchuck said. In addition, 44 residents took courses at Lasell College, and one resident enrolled in a baccalaureate degree program. Currently, Panchuck said, 92% of the residents are enrolled in courses.
Panchuck explained that individual learning plans include such wide-ranging activities as courses (many of them intergenerational); fitness programs; continued employment; community service; leadership or involvement in organizations at and outside of the village; educational travel through Elderhostel or other groups; and mentoring Lasell College students or advising student groups.
Additionally, over 60 Lasell College students and 75 young children from the community engaged in intergenerational educational activities with Lasell residents during the 20002001 academic year, Panchuck noted. Many residents also participate in arts programs and presentations of their own creative work. All 162 units of the retirement community are occupied, and 100 people are on the waiting list, she said. Residents' average age is 80, and 80% hold either a bachelor's or graduate-level college degree. The Lasell Institute offers full scholarships for the learning-in-retirement program to community members who are not able to pay the membership tuition.
Panchuck said that the new Lasell College Center for Research on Aging and Intergenerational Studies was launched at the village in January. "The center's mission is to enhance the quality of life of older adults through research, community partnerships and teaching focused on aging, lifelong learning and intergenerational programs," she added. She noted that the village also is the location of the Elderhostel-affiliated Lasell College Institute for Learning in Retirement, established in 1998. It will be part of a program granting a master of management degree with a concentration in elder care that is scheduled to start next fall, she said.
For more information contact Panchuck at (617) 663-7054 or ppanchuck @lasell.edu.
Now in its 14th year, "Mind Works: The Mental Fitness Connection" was directly inspired by brain research at the Berkeley campus of the University of California (UC) in the 1980s, where program founder Connie Lynch was a microbiologist. She explained that UC scientist Marion Diamond and colleagues showed that rodents kept in special cages enriched with interesting and stimulating toys, such as ladders to climb and tunnels to explore, developed thicker cortexes than sedentary "couch potato" rats kept in unequipped cages. The experiment had the same positive effect on very old rodents exposed to enriched cages as it did on younger ones.
Lynch said she was challenged by the UC results "to design mental ladders and mental tunnels and perhaps even further types of mental gymnastics that would stimulate older adults, yet provide fun at the same time." She created weekly Mind Works classes at a senior center and authored a replication manual published in 2000 titled Don't Lose Your Mind: Four Components of Superior Mental Fitness (San Francisco: Bridge Learning Systems). To activate the components--awareness, communication, curiosity and willingness to accept mental challenges--sessions use a variety of techniques to widen a participant's perspective, often through observation of their surroundings and senses.
For example, one homework exercise involves observing the unspoken messages of people one encounters on the street or at a mall--such as whether people smile, make or avoid eye contact, or seem friendly. Another exercise calls for describing through all five senses an object one uses frequently. Lynch noted that some of her senior-center participants have attended her sessions for more than 10 years.
"Age is not a factor in learning new information," Lynch said. She focused the Mind Works approach on seven scientific processes of thinking and learning designated by the California State Board of Education as processes of science: They begin with the most basic processes of observing and increase in complexity: communicating what is observed; comparing features and attributes; organizing, which involves grouping, sequencing and classifying; relating variables essential to analyzing things in concrete and abstract terms; inferring and applying knowledge, as a chess player does.
Lynch said that frequently, Mind Works beginners are concerned about memory loss. "Misplacing keys and eyeglasses is considered humorous at age 20, but after 60, many individuals become worried that the problem is serious. The inability to remember a specific word or name also may cause apprehension," she said. Once elders are in a nonthreatening, noncompetitive atmosphere, she added, "they discover that a minor memory problem was exactly that--minor--and they quickly readapt to the thinking methods that were so satisfying in their youth or learn other ways to remember the things that troubled them. Mental exercise in general brings about memory improvement."
Contact Lynch at (510) 526-2360 or conniemw@aol.com.
Clinical social worker Robyn Yale, based in San Francisco, was honored for developing a model for maximizing the mental functioning of those in the early stages of Alzheimer's disease. In challenging prevailing stereotypes, she demonstrated that "many people with early Alzheimer's disease are willing and able to talk about their experiences when given the opportunity; therefore, support groups can help them accept and cope with the illness rather than remain isolated and dehumanized." Yale documented her approach in Developing Support Groups for Individuals With Early-Stage Alzheimer's Disease: Planning, Implementation and Evaluation (Baltimore, Md.: Health Professions Press, 1995).
Yale explained that in her model program individuals with early-stage Alzheimer's disease and their family members meet concurrently in separate support groups, which run continuously in eight-week sessions with two-week breaks between sessions. People can stay in the program as long as they are able to participate and benefit, and are transitioned out on a case-by-case basis. "The groups provide education and support, and they encourage people with the disease to go on living full and meaningful lives for as long as possible," Yale said.
Her approach has been adopted in numerous countries, Yale said. For example, the city of Adelaide, Australia, has served almost 1,000 individuals with early dementia and their caregivers in recent years. And she estimates that support groups based on her model have helped as many as 10,000 people to date through programs in the nine San Francisco Bay Area counties.
Although Yale said the cost of starting individual support groups varies widely, a new group typically can be launched for about $1,500 to cover costs of recruiting and selecting group participants and $1,200 for facilitating an eight-week session for 20 people (10 people with Alzheimer's and 10 family members). These expenses usually are partially offset by fees charged to participants, ranging up to $35 or more per week per family. Organizations often use other funding sources such as grants to start up and support the programs.
Yale said that her approach focuses on participants' remaining strengths and capabilities. It allows people with Alzheimer's and their families to understand and communicate about the disease, deal with their emotional reactions, problem-solve and adjust to current changes in their lives, plan for the future and learn about available community resources much sooner in the course of the disease than they otherwise would. Yale added, "This process also enables individuals with Alzheimer's disease to be involved in family decision-making on their own behalf, which becomes less possible as the disease progresses."
For more information, contact Yale at (415) 673-3881 or robynyale@yahoo.com.
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