Building a castle of “Happy Living” around the corner of life

Building a castle of “Happy Living” around the corner of life.

It’s a common sight in the city parks all around Taiwan to see disabled older adults with their eyes looking hollow, being left alone in wheelchairs while the caregivers gather and chat cheerfully nearby. Sometimes you’ll find groups of elderly people in the parks who have good functional ability and mobility doing some form of exercise without any regard for taking personal safety precautions. Whenever I witnessed such scenes, I would feel sad and worrisome. Four years ago, I happened to see a documentary that featured a program in Finland where a university had conducted a program in which college students were recruited to lead exercise sessions for local older adults. Seeing the images of the participants being able to perform calisthenics together, tumbling and hopping happily and confidently, I was deeply touched and excited. My initial impression gradually evolved to form the goals of our program and team. Our goal would be to provide a program that would result in the following outcome: “At most, the older person would have to endure a disabled status for only a week, before the end of life, enabling every older adult to lead a full, happy life with dignity”. A castle of “Happy Living” was then constructed for older adults, which was named the “Active Ageing Sports Institute”.

You were always there for me when I was growing up. It’s my turn now to be by your side while you age.

In this aging society, it’s not uncommon to see an older adult playing the role of the caregiver for another elderly person. Two of the participants in our Active Ageing program are a perfect example of this type of partnership. One may think that the 71-year-old aunt Chiu-Yue has reached the age when she needs someone to take care of her. In fact, she is the main caregiver for her 92-year-old mother, aunt Liu-Mei. With her mother in the wheelchair, aunt Chiu-Yue takes her on outings to places for shopping or strolling everyday. When aunt Chiu-Yue learned about the upcoming program for older adults offered by the Active Ageing Sports Institute at the office of Shin-Ying Li, Chong-Cheng District by chance, she persuaded her mother to sign up for the program. Based on a wide variety of experiences previously as a participant in older adult programs, aunt Chiu-Yue rated the Active Ageing program highly. Although she has to walk for 20 minutes both ways, sometimes in the hot summer morning, pushing aunt Liu-Mei in the wheelchair, it never occurred to her that they would want to skip a class. As told by aunt Chiu-Yue, the reasons behind her high motivation are due to the program’s components including “the multi-faceted program design, the fun factor, the professionalism of the instructor and all the staff members, and safe environment”. The combination of all these factors enabled her mother to fully enjoy the workout, either in a sitting or standing position. Aunt Chiu-Yue talks about her experience in her first aqua fitness class led by our international instructor Mary E. Sanders, the Clinical Assistant Professor in the School of Public Health, University of Nevada-Reno, USA and the team of staff. Aunt Chiu-Yue was enthusiastic and said, “ I never dreamed that at my age I could still get into the pool and play comfortably with so much fun!”

Let’s grow old hand in hand.

“The most romantic thing that I could think of was to grow old slowly with you.” is a piece of lyric from a popular song. In this aging society this can be a luxurious blessing. Two of our loyal participants, the 79-year-old aunt Huei-May and her husband, the 82-year-old uncle Fa-Lai are perfect examples of such blessing. Aunt Huei-May performs volunteer work at the community older adult center. Uncle Fa-Lai used to work at Wan-Hua Junior High School for 40 years before he retired. Uncle Fa-Lai accumulated a long list of traveling experiences, both locally and internationally. Worrying that her husband might deteriorate rapidly physically as well as mentally from his retired life which kept him at home most of the time, aunt Huei-May invited uncle Fa-Lai to sign up for our program. After participating in our structured exercise programs which were customized to the needs of older adults for 4 terms, uncle Fa-Lai now notices that he does not get breathless as easily as he used to anymore. Based on the results of our periodic evaluation, using the Senior Fitness Test, we confirmed that uncle Fa-Lai has improved significantly in a number of functional elements including lower body muscle endurance, flexibility, cardiopulmonary endurance, as well as cognition. Despite the fact that aunt Huei-May and uncle Fa-Lai needed to get up early in the morning in order to travel a long way by bus to get to the class in Tien-Mu from New Taipei City, this once-a-week event which they attended hand in hand was something that they treasured, felt blessed by, and looked forward to the most during the week.

Living alone yet refusing to lead a lonely life, the 94-year-old lady is composing a piece of the beautiful music of “Happy Living”.

Without exception, aunt Jing-Yun is always the first to arrive, and sign in before every class. Having lived alone while remaining independent for 28 years, our 94-year-old lady walks with an amazingly brisk pace all the time, maintains clear thinking ,and is very thoughtful of others. Aunt Jing-Yun has raised 7 children. She told us that “The biggest gift I could possibly give my children is to stay healthy and to maintain independent living.” With that goal in mind, in order to always be on time for class, she left her house in Da-Tong District early to complete the 30-minute bus ride for an on-time arrival in Tien-Mu. Unlike many of our other participants who are veterans of a variety of community programs, aunt Jing-Yun hardly ever joins the exercise group in the park near her house. However, she said that she felt secure and protected while working out as part of the Active Ageing program. The comfortable space provided to move around, the camaraderie shared with the team of staff including the professional instructors, student assistants, as well as the athletic trainer, are all reasons why she’s remained active in the program. When she described the wide variety of classes in our program, her eyes shined with happiness. In the past 3 years, we’ve invited the international presenter Mary E. Sanders to take part and lead a couple of classes in the program every year. A special friendship has developed between the two ladies. Aunt Jing-Yun talks about Mary: “I don’t know how old she is, but she is definitely very agile and act like a child.” In fact, in the eyes of our team of staff, aunt Jing-Yun is the naughty child who seems to come from “the Land of Never-ageing”, especially when she winks to make funny faces while having her picture taken with Mary.

Let the younger generation guard and nurture the value of “Active Ageing”.

Our program provides compassionate, science-based practical training for students who work personally with older adults in an academic environment. Professionally, our students will be better equipped to deliver individualized, safe and effective programs in response to the needs of older people in Taiwan, and to serve as leaders in programs that enhance the opportunity for more older adults to achieve an independent and dignified quality of life. Due to this support, received during the first period of the project implementation, 37 student assistants earned certificates that demonstrated qualification in active aging instructional leadership. We believe that those who have recently earned the qualification and our future candidates who will have the opportunity to participate in our program will maintain their passion and enthusiasm for working with, and promoting physical activity that makes every age count by refocusing a person’s LIFE SPAN to HEALTH SPAN for healthy older adult living.

By guarding and nurturing the health of older adults in our castle, we will have the honor to keep them company on their journey of silver years with quality and dignity.