Seniors’ health and wellness is top of mind
After a successful debut last year, the Seniors’ Health and Wellness Forum is returning to Edmonton next weekend.
On Nov. 4, the forum will return to the Central Lions Seniors Recreation Centre, where it will once again serve as a follow-up to the well established Seniors’ Housing Forum.
“The numbers were so impressive from last year,” explained Mary Whale, a healthy aging nurse with the Southside PCN and a member of the Seniors’ Health and Wellness Forum planning committee. “We were riding the success from the Seniors’ Housing Forum.”
The Seniors’ Health and Wellness Forum got its start when the planning committee of stakeholder organizations acknowledged there was still more information out there to give to seniors and their caregivers about living well as they age.
“One of the things seniors made a priority was access to health information,” Whale said.
Following a similar template as the Seniors’ Housing Forum, the Health and Wellness Forum has partnered with Age Friendly Edmonton to bring together organizations that focus on keeping seniors healthy in all senses of the word, especially through preventive measures.
Age Friendly Edmonton has been brought on board as the forum’s presenting sponsor, Whale explained, as one area of focus for the initiative is to ensure seniors have access to information about health and wellness resources.
In determining what topics would be brought to the fore at the forum, Whale said a document compiled by the federal, provincial and territorial ministers responsible for health entitled Thinking About Your Future? Plan Now to Age in Place was a great resource.
The document covers nine different areas in seniors’ lives, and includes checklists within each of those areas that seniors can use to see where they are in their lives, and what they need to think about as they age.
Some of the topics covered in the document include health (planning for a healthy future and the role of health-care professionals), transportation (what public and private options are available for seniors who no longer drive), finances (strategies to financial planning to age well), supports and services (practical resources to allow seniors to age in place), safety (chemical safety in your home), and connections (factors that may lead to social isolation and ways to prevent this).
Whale said the Seniors’ Health and Wellness Forum has taken those nine areas and used them as session topics, so attendees can pick and choose the specific topics about which they wish to learn more. In addition, those in attendance will also have the opportunity to fill out the checklists as part of their learning.
While the document was created with a national scope in mind, Whale said the forum will take those topics and adjust them so they cater to the Edmonton region.
The goal of the forum is, at its core, to get information out there about how to live well, beyond what was common in the past.
“We hear so much negative stuff about aging,” Whale said. “It’s like the Grey Tsunami and all those expressions you hear, and how it’s going to break the system.
However, it’s also an opportunity that previous generations haven’t had.
“The changes that demographic has seen over time has created an amazing demographic of people who have incredible life experience and wisdom, and I think that’s a huge resource,” she said. “That’s worth a lot to facilitate and nurture and support them in any way we can, so they can participate in our communities and we can realize the incredible resource that they are.”
As such, it means the forum will be looking at things both in general and at the individual level, and attendees will receive checklists to fill out to learn where they stand.
Having nine different topics up for discussion means nothing will be left out.
The Seniors’ Health and Wellness Forum is free to attend, but registration is required. To register, please call 780-809-8604. The forum takes place Nov. 4 from 9 a.m.-2:30 p.m. at the Central Lions Seniors Recreation Centre at 11113 113 St. NW.
For more information, visit http://www.mysage.ca/events/health-and-wellnessforum.