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2004 Awards Programs 2004 MindAlert Awards Award for Normal Mental Fitness
Senior Peer Counseling, Center for Healthy Aging
While not new, the value of Senior Peer Counseling Program has increased in mental health and wellness services with staffing and funding shortages. For older adults in need of emotional support yet uncomfortable with professional psychiatric services, peer counselors help in coping with issues such as caregiving, finding community resources and enhancing enthusiasm for life through active involvement. Center for Healthy Aging's Senior Peer Counselors benefit by receiving mentally challenging and meaningful materials. Meaningful learning for peer counselors begins with a 24-session training-including such topics as Psychology of Aging, ABCs of Counseling, Adapting to Our Rapidly Changing Society, and Creative Aging. Counselors attend weekly supervision with a licensed mental health professional to increase their skills and expand their relationships with other counselors. Their education and bonding continue through in-services, classes, and workshops. Learning new skills, interacting with other counselors, becoming involved in an important community service, and developing valuable relationships with their clients give the counselors satisfaction, a new sense of identity, increased self-esteem and strong enthusiasm for the program. Innovation of this peer counseling program is found in the focus on self-awareness and self-learning that permeates every aspect of the program. This atmosphere creates an exciting atmosphere, which contributes to retaining counselors for many years; one counselor left at the age of 90, after 15 years with the program. To promote replication of the program, the Center developed a training manual and video providing the basis for many programs throughout the United States and internationally. Contact Award for Early Dementia Program
The Buddy Program
Northwestern University Cognitive Neurology & Alzheimer's Disease Center The Cognitive Neurology and Alzheimer's Disease Center (CNADC) of Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine is a multidisciplinary organization dedicated research on the brain's role in coordinating mental functions, bringing research to practice through quality clinical services, and training researchers and clinicians seeking to work in cognitive neurology. The Buddy Program was developed 6 years ago. This unique program matches first year medical students at the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine with individuals diagnosed with early Alzheimer's disease or related dementias. The program allows the students and diagnosed individuals to get to know each other on a personal rather than a clinical level. The program addresses two aspects of care. 1) With growing numbers of earlier stage diagnosis, CNADC identified a gap between the provision of services and programs to help meet their intellectual and social needs. The Buddy Program, easily replicable, helps fill this gap by offering people in the early stages of Alzheimer's disease opportunities to maintain usual or preferred level of activity in ways that are particularly suited to their own individual capacity. 2) The literature has demonstrated that healthcare professionals and physicians in particular, tend to have a negative attitude toward older patients and a lack of awareness regarding early diagnosis of dementia. The Buddy Program provides participating students with increased knowledge about AD as well as positive experiences with older patients. Contact Award for Innovative Older Adult Learning Program
The Illuminated Life
Osher Lifelong Learning Institute University of Hawaii at Manoa The Illuminated Life workshop is a comprehensive, structured life review program designed to help independent older persons enhance their psychological functioning. The workshop's retrospective-proactive orientation assists participants in gathering insights about their lives in order to consider creative post-retirement roles and integrate the learning of a lifetime. Since its creation in 1987 by Dr. Abe Arkoff, Professor Emeritus, University of Hawaii at Manoa, the workshop has been presented at its home base, the University's Osher Lifelong Learning Institute, and in other venues including retirement residences, senior centers, churches, Elderhostel, and several mainland sites. The 14 two-hour weekly meetings in the workshop each address a "life question." Participants prepare for each meeting by reading a brief workbook chapter and completing an exercise that helps them arrive at their own answer to the life question. The first hour of the workshop features the whole group's pursuit of a life question guided by a leader who follows a detailed guidebook. In the second hour, participants in smaller groups share their answers following clear guidelines for sharing and disclosing information. Research with older women completing the workshop in 2000 showed significant gain on a measure of psychological well being in contrast to a control group that showed no change. Publication of findings is forthcoming in The Journal of Humanistic Psychology . Work is underway to test adaptations of the workshop materials for pairs and leaderless groups. Contact |
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