ASA - American Society on Aging

MindAlert Speakers Bureau
Sponsored by the MetLife Foundation

About the Speakers Bureau

MetLife Foundation MindAlert Speakers Bureau purpose is to train professionals around the country to implement cognitive stimulating programs in local settings. Faculty for the Speakers Bureau have received the MetLife Foundation MindAlert Award and are recognized as an innovative community-based program translating research related to enhancing cognitive function in later life into practical mental/cognitive health promotion activities.

Submission Requirements, Host Site Scope of Work and Deadlines

For more information on submission requirements, scope of work, deadlines and to apply online, click here

Speakers Bureau Faculty

Dalia Gottlieb-Tanaka, M. Arch., PhD, Vancouver, British Columbia

Assessing Creative Expression Abilities for People with Dementia

This observation tool was recently developed to assess the creative expression abilities of people with mild to severe dementia. This tool will help caregivers in selecting appropriate programs to fit their clients' needs. In the morning session we discuss the practical and theoretical considerations that led to the development of the tool, while the afternoon session covers training for the use of this tool. The workshop also includes a discussion of the award-winning Creative Expression Activities Program, which is designed to use the participants' remaining abilities to tap into their past life histories and express their feelings creatively through drawing, writing poems, story telling, music and reminiscing. The workshop addresses the urgent need of the dementia care industry to assess people with dementia as their medical condition progresses and understand them better. This workshop is ideal for creative expression facilitators, administrators of care facilities, caregivers as well as family members.

Anne Basting, PhD, Director, Center on Age & Community, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee

Dare to Imagine: Transforming Dementia Care Through Creative Engagement
What is creative engagement and why is it so affective with people with cognitive disabilities? Basting uses wide ranging examples and examples (including creative storytelling and poetry) to help audience members experience creativity and understand why it offers the key to changing our approach to dementia care in this country. Training is customizable to different audiences and purposes, and can include an in-depth training in the TimeSlips storytelling method. .

Anne Basting (Ph.D.) is the Director of the Center on Age & Community and an Associate Professor in the Department of Theatre at the Peck School of the Arts, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee where she teaches storytelling and playwriting. Basting has written extensively on issues of aging and representation, including her book The Stages of Age: Performing Age in Contemporary American Culture. Her numerous articles and essays have been published across multiple disciplines including journals such as The Drama Review, American Theatre, and Journal of Aging Studies, and anthologies Figuring Age, Mental Wellness in Aging, the Handbook for the Humanities and Aging, and Aging and the Meaning of Time. Basting is the recipient of a Rockefeller Fellowship, a Brookdale National Fellowship, and numerous major grants for her scholarly and creative endeavors. Her creative work includes nearly a dozen plays and public performances. Basting received her Ph.D. in Theatre Arts and Dance from the University of Minnesota. She continues to direct the TimeSlips Creative Storytelling Project, which she founded in 1998, and is currently at work on a new book, Forget Memory: Imagining a Better Life for People with Dementia. Basting makes numerous presentations creativity and aging across the United States.

Judith-Kate Friedman, Executive Director, Songwriting Works™, Port Townsend, WA

SONGWRITING WORKS: Giving Voice to Elders Across the Cognitive Continuum – Enhancing Health through Songwriting and Performance

Songwriting Works™ advocates for and provides full access to creative music programs for a diverse spectrum of elders. This session highlights an innovative, replicable model for engaging elders including those with mild to more severe cognitive impairments, and addresses issues in the caregiver-older adult relationship, offering tools and inspiration. As a result of the session, participants will gain insights into their own creativity and the health benefits that result for all who engage in the power of combining words and music. The session will reference current evidence-based research and explore relevant applications of this work to the caregiver's role(s) and facility's programs. No prior music background is needed. Trainings are customized for health and/or arts professionals across the care continuum and for elders who attend. Focus may include: serving older adults dwelling in community; serving elders in care settings; using the Psalms as a basis for songwriting with elders.

Susan Perlstein, MSW, Executive Director, Elders Share the Arts, Brooklyn, New York,
Susan Willerman, BFA - Drama, Artist/Trainer, National Center for Creative Aging & Elders Share the Arts

Creative Engagement for the Heart and Mind

Creative strategies can improve quality of life at any age and any level of physical, emotional or cognitive functioning. This full day of hands-on workshops will explore ways in which art forms can be used to reframe and integrate elders' experiences and enhance cognitive functioning. As a result, participants will experience a sense of identity and belonging--and a deeper appreciation for both the individual and collective experience. The program will include experiential exercises that tie phases of the creative process to actual practice including sense memory learning, visualization, interviewing, story sharing, writing and visual arts. Specific skills will be taught and adapted for well and frail elders, and for intergenerational groups.

Ruth Flexman, PhD, Academy of Lifelong Learning, University of Delaware

Understanding ways to develop cognitive fitness is important for both professionals and older adults. The morning session of this workshop combines professionals with a demonstration group of older adults. Participation in interactive exercise stimulates both sides of the brain and six different forms of intelligences. This variety of learning experiences promotes creativity and memory while demonstrating that learning can be fun.

The afternoon session for professionals ties research-based theory to practice. Techniques are described for developing successful learning experiences for individuals and groups to enhance cognitive fitness. The experiential design encourages creativity in developing applications for a wide variety of settings. Ruth Flexman, with a background in education and social services, is Program Coordinator for University of Delaware’s Academy of Lifelong Learning that offers 220 courses taught by volunteer instructors to 2100 older adults.

Cheryl Svensson, Los Angeles, California
Autobiographical Studies Program

Dr. James Birren designed the Autobiographical Studies Program to meet the needs of middle aged and older persons. At the heart of the program is Guided Autobiography, a course designed to help individuals organize their life stories. Guided by a trained instructor, participants are led through life themes and priming questions that evoke memories of the past. By participating in Guided Autobiography and writing their stories, older adults review where they have been in life, where they are, and where they would like to be. This process develops interest in trying new activities and encourages the emergence of late-life bloomers. Participants, by becoming aware of the life they have lived, develop more confidence and optimism to face the years ahead and are better equipped to use the gift of a long life in productive ways. Cheryl Svensson, Ph.D. has trained and presented with Dr. Birren for the past several years. More information is available at the website: www.guidedautobiography.com.

Developing Cognitive Fitness through Civic Engagement and Volunteerism

Sheila Segal, MFT, Peer Counseling Program Director, and
Marlena Ross, PhD, Program Manager, Special Projects
WISE & Healthy Aging, Santa Monica, California

Expanding Counseling Techniques to Best Support the Physical and Cognitive Challenges of Older Adults

The Senior Peer Counseling program at WISE & Healthy Aging (formerly Center for Healthy Aging) serves as a model for programs both nationally and internationally. In this highly successful and effective program, older adults are trained to provide individual counseling to their peers and also to lead groups dealing with a variety of stage-of-life changes and issues. As a volunteer-based program, peer counseling is very cost-effective and can be adapted to meet the needs of the older adults in any community and in any setting. In this workshop, we will present:

An overview of essential principles of peer counseling
The latest research on the physical and cognitive challenges facing the older population, e.g., short-term memory loss, diabetes, macular degeneration, fear of falling,
Imaginative and creative peer counseling techniques and interventions to address these challenges
How the peer counseling program can be designed to meet the needs of older adults in your community
The importance of “being present,” personal awareness, self-exploration, and ongoing learning for older adult volunteers and how this is achieved in the peer counseling program

The workshop will include both didactic information and experiential exercises.

Darby Morhardt, MSW, LCSW, Northwestern University’s Alzheimer’s Disease Center, Chicago, Illinois

The Buddy Program: Teaming Students with Persons with Early Stage Alzheimer’s Disease to promote Cognitive Vitality

The "Buddy Program" began in 1997 at Northwestern University's Alzheimer's Disease (AD) Center, one of twenty-nine National Institute on Aging funded Alzheimer's disease centers in the U.S. devoted to scientific and clinical research and education. In 2004, the program was expanded to scientists in Alzheimer's disease research and it can easily be adapted for other healthcare providers in training such as social workers, nurses and others.

The "Buddy Program" matches heath care provider students with individuals diagnosed with early Alzheimer's disease or related dementias. This unique program gives students and persons with dementia the opportunity to get to know each other on a personal rather than a clinical level. The program addresses two aspects of care:

The gap between the provision of services and meeting the diagnosed individual's intellectual and social needs. The "Buddy Program" helps fill this gap by offering people in the early stages of Alzheimer's disease opportunities to maintain their usual or preferred level of activity in ways that are particularly suited to their own individual capacity
The tendency cited in the literature that healthcare professionals and physicians in particular, 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, positive experiences with older persons and sensitivity to the unique realities faced by persons with dementia and their caregiving families.

This MindAlert session will provide an overview of the training curriculum developed for schools, universities, or community service agencies as a guide to putting a "Buddy Program" into practice. The curriculum includes step-by-step instructions on how to implement the program including recruitment and orientation procedures, the art of "buddy" matching, developing communication skills, pre-post testing of students, ongoing program monitoring and short and long-term program evaluation.

Vicki Rosebrook, PhD, Executive Director, Macklin Intergenerational Institute

A Holistic Approach to Long Term Care

A holistic approach to care - SPECS (Social, Physical, Emotional, Cognitive, and Spiritual) enables institutionalized elders to interact in ongoing spontaneous activities with children. Within an age-enriched environment and through familial activities (i.e. cooking, folding clothes, and reading), elders become more physically active. This activity encourages emotional and spiritual enrichment because the elders once again feel needed, useful, and connected. As senior adults experience the vitality and energy of the youngsters, the elders are empowered to enhance their mental fitness. Within this dynamic, age-integrated social loop where seniors help socialize children, elders are reciprocally resocialized through human connection.

Terry Englehart, MA in Gerontology, Founding Director

Senior Center Without Walls

Senior Center Without Walls, a free teleconferencing activities program in the San Francisco Bay Area, offers homebound elders an easily accessible means of participation in a vibrant telephone community. Elders call in to join others in support groups, classes, brain games, discussions, parties, armchair trips, and even a talent show! Participants who are capable and interested are encouraged to create and facilitate groups. One participant beautifully expressed what the program has meant to her. "Senior Center Without Walls is really about removing the walls between us—creating connections on the phone with people who would otherwise not know each other. This is what SCWW has done for me and others."

Martha Spinks, Executive Director, St. Barnabas Senior Center of LA

Borchardt Cyber Café

St. Barnabas Senior Center’s Borchardt Cyber Café helps low income and non-English speaking elders “cross the digital divide.” Considering the multi-ethnic population St. Barnabas serves, and the implications for helping them cross the digital divide, St. Barnabas took a broad sociological approach to the challenge, rather than a narrow technological approach. Computer labs by design isolate, strictly focusing a student’s attention on what can be a daunting singular end goal: mastery of the computer. By contrast, the Cyber Café is designed to engage students in a more multivariate way. Seeking to engage seniors in a lifestyle of learning, the Cyber Café, rather than focusing on learning computers as an end goal.