Unit 9 Antonett James- I learned about resources for older adults after retiring. Matrix Human Services Older Adult and Wellness provides recreational, social educational, and wellness activities.
Carolyn Musatics- I learned about Certified Aging in Place Specialist (CAPS). Tis is a good resource for preparing a home for an older adult.
Aubrey Olson- The Meals on Wheels Program for seniors is one of the best programs out there. You have to be over 60 years old and housebound to received delivered meals.
Randall Mcelfresh- Social Death is a concept of dying. Good death is when a old person lives their life and dies at an old age.
Lisa Clay- The Mental Health of an older person is influences by many factors including, loss of a family member or job, stress, low self-esteem, or an traumatic experience.
Unit 8 My older adult assignment is coming along. I have compiled a list of questions that I plan on asking my grandmother. I have spoke with her twice already and one of the questions I asked her was why she has never shared any stories with me about her childhood" I did not get a real answer from her and that's when I decided to ask her the second time I visited her. That time I reworded the question so that the answer would not be so general. I asked her what did she do for fun growing up? At first she said "child I'm too old to remember things like that". She then went into a story of how they didn't have much money so they had to make fun.
I tried out a simple question to see if I would have a hard time getting her to respond to my questions. Our scheduled interview regarding my assignment is scheduled for Nov 1st.
Unit 7 I had a lot of A-ha moments while learning about Dementia and Alzheimer's disease. It's pretty embarrassing by I thought they were the same. I feel like I focus a lot on reflecting back on them because not once has anyone of my family members corrected me. My grandma has dementia and I'm familiar with it but, it has been times when I refer to it as Alzheimer's to my relatives and they never correct me. This makes me feel like they don't know the difference. I feel like it's important for me to keep researching the both of them especially, since the causes of Alzheimer's are unknown and it is not reversible.
I also, had a A-ha moment while reading Annie's Ghost. I heard of Eloise Hospital but, I never knew much about it. It was interesting reading a story that is based off of my home town.
Unit 6 So far I am enjoying Annie’s Ghost. Tiffany and I agreed that it is interesting that this story was based in Detroit. I was shocked that this story was based in Detroit and it was my first time every hearing about it. We were shocked to read how easy it was for her family to admit her into an institution.
Antonett and I discussed how it was hard to understand how Beth could keep her sister a secret for so many years. We thought that Beth parents may have forced her into keeping this secret by telling her she will disgrace the family. Neither one of us could imagine hiding the fact they we had sister, without feeling guilty. We assumed that this is probably why the truth finally came out.
Cali and talked about how there are probably many cases like Annie's case. It's good see that he was brave and motivated enough to do the research to find out the truth about Annie.
Unit 5
I listened to the interview with Laurence Steinberg, “Adolescence,
the age of opportunity. Steinberg discussed
how adolescence use to be viewed as a time of difficulty, when we should be
viewing it as a time of opportunity. A child experiences during adolescence has
an effect on how their brain develops and has an effect on a child’s life.
Children are going through puberty at an early age and they are becoming an
adult at a higher age. The new age for adolescence is 10 years old to 15 years
old.
I would use this information in my practice by focusing on
offering more experiences for children to learn from their mistakes as an adolescent.
If a child is experiencing behavior issues,
I would focus on what made them do what they did wrong. I enjoyed this podcast
because it pointed out when a child do something wrong, it its due to bad judgment
and not bad character. Many people are so quick to say that child is just bad.
Well, reality is they are not capable of making the same decisions as an adult
and they do not have the same judgment as an adult. They should not have a
label placed on their character.
Unit 4
I was considering
interviewing a stranger because I thought it would be good to learn about the
life of a stranger. Then I realized there is a lot of information about my
family that I don’t know. I decided to interview my maternal grandmother
because she is the closest older adult to me. She is 84 years old and she takes
care of my 45 year old aunt who has the mind of a 2 year old due to running a
high fever, when she was younger. I know so much about her my grandmother, but
I don’t know much about her childhood. I
hope this interview opens up an opportunity for me to ask questions about her
childhood. My grandmother was a house wife, but she was a ballet dancer before
she got married. She received a scholarship to a school in New York, but she
didn’t take it. This interview will give me the opportunity to as her why she
decided not to go to New York.
My grandmother is a
very strong woman and she is still capable of doing many things on her own. She
always enjoyed getting out of the house to go grocery shopping because it was
like an outing for her. Last year, she started sending my mother out to do her
grocery shopping for her. Her health is in the same condition as it was in last
year. She still relies on my mother for minimum support like she did last year.
I wonder what changed? I think interviewing her will give me a good
understanding of what’s going on in her mind. I think this will be a great
opportunity for us to reflect together on her life.
I plan to set up two
different interviews. The first interview will include me observing her in her
own environment, sitting down at the table with a set of planned questions. The
other interview will be more natural and relaxed. I won’t have any prepared
questions. I would ask a few of the questions from the first interview, but
randomly during one of our conversation. I think it would be interesting to see
the difference in how she responds during a planned interview versus how she
responds during a natural conversation.
Unit 3 I did good on the quiz. Some of the information I didn't know but, the guesses I made were correct. I never would of thought that Japan women have the highest Life Expectancy. It was good to see the population rates of the developing world estimated to increase over the years. I was very shocked that China has a estimate of 15 cars per 1000 people. That is extremely low compared to the United States which is 600 cars per 1000 people. In the United States, there is a low chance of a woman dying from giving birth, in developing countries an estimate of 527,000 million women die per year. I enjoyed the quiz and a lot of the information was very new to me.
Unit 2 This week session was very informational and it touched on a few things that surrounding my life. The first thing I learned is about the Reminiscence Therapy that is used as an intervention with Dementia clients. I think this is a really good intervention and if can bring about happy moments in a clients life as well as sad moments. This would also be a good intervention to use in family therapy. I see it as helping families figure out when their issues arise and why. It opens up opportunities for discussion and possibly resolutions.
I also learned about the importance of civic engagement in older adults. Civic engagement in general is volunteering your time within the community. According to Phillips, Ajrough, and Hillcoat-Nalletamby (2010), "Older people life experiences generates skills an knowledge provides older adults with positions to donate their time to support their communities". This also gives older adult the ability to get out and socialize and to continue enjoying their life.
In this session I learned about Convoy Theory. I agree hat everyone has someone in their life that provides support and influence over them. I would use this as a professional by valuing close relationships because they help shape who I am as a person. I would use this theory as a intervention while working with teenagers with low self-esteem.
This was my second time using Weebly and I found it to be a lot easier to use. Although, my webpage still seems a little plain I was able to navigate through the different icons and change the design. I learned how to create a contact form and I was able to test it out by responding to my classmates post. I'm not a computer genius but I was able to use my problem solving skills to figure things out.