2 months ago · kayla@marketburst.net · Comments Off on 2023: New Year, New Programs at Tribute Senior Living

2023: New Year, New Programs at Tribute Senior Living

New Year’s Day is the world’s most celebrated holiday. On this day, most people remember last year’s accomplishments and failures and then look forward to the promise of a new year, an opportunity for a new beginning.

Once all the holiday hoopla is over, most of us get back to being more serious about life. We start thinking about what went well and what did not, what we want to change about ourselves and our situations and start planning our “resolutions” for the new year.

New Year’s Day is the most active-minded holiday because it is when people evaluate their lives and plan and resolve to take action. These evaluations may include self, family, work, religion, finances, education, and more.

Most people want to enjoy a sense of belonging, self-betterment, purpose, accomplishment, and the pleasure they feel when achieving goals. This doesn’t change when you age, and seniors still desire to have these same goals met.

So, this year, once again, Tribute has set our goals high. COVID has taken some wind out of our programming sails, but we are determined to get back on track in 2023!

Here are some new things you can expect to see coming to our calendar of engagement and programs in 2023:

• Mindfulness: Mindful meditation has many potential psychological and physical benefits for older adults, including better focus, enhanced calmness, less stress, and improved sleep. Studies have shown that mindfulness and meditation can reduce depression and pain and boost emotional well-being.
• Breathing: Breathing exercises for seniors can help increase their strength and stamina and improve their overall mood and well-being. As adults age, their blood oxygen levels decrease by up to 20%, making it difficult for them to breathe properly and deeply.
• Yoga/Tai Chi style stretching, exercise, and meditation: Can improve your balance, flexibility, strength, mobility, mood, quality of life, range of motion, reflexes, and thinking skills. They also reduce pain and your risk of falls. Tai Chi focuses on breath and state of mind, making it similar to yoga but better for seniors because it can improve balance into old age.
• Sensory Training: One method that can help make the link is sensory stimulation therapy, which is the practice of using everyday sounds, objects, foods, and other items to awaken the senses and elicit a positive response or feeling. Another is using the five senses to stimulate the brain to improve synapsis and neuroplasticity.
• Intergenerational Socialization: Intergenerational programming lowers social isolation and loneliness issues by allowing different generations to come together, learn from one another and form new friendships. The relationships formed between generations also improves communities by combating negative stereotypes and ageism.
• Music therapy: In a clinical sense, musical therapy’s goal for seniors is to maintain or improve physical health, mental processing, and social functioning. It can help:
  • Improve memory and focus
  • Calm agitation in Dementia patients
  • Help with depression and stress
  • Increase movement and exercise
  • Enhance communication skills
  • Help with socialization

While these programs do not cure dementia, in many cases, they have been shown to improve mood, memory, and quality of life for senior adults. Start watching for articles, studies, and videos on our Facebook page and our News and Events section on our website.  

Below is an example of what research we base some of our programming on when creating brain training.  

The ten principles of Neuroplasticity are: 

1. Use it or lose it: Failure to drive specific brain functions can lead to loss of abilities.
2. Use it and improve it: Training that drives a specific brain function can lead to improving abilities.
3. Specificity: The nature of the training experience dictates the nature of the change in the brain (plasticity).
4. Repetition matters: Change (plasticity) requires sufficient repetition.
5. Intensity matters: Change (plasticity) requires intensive training.
6. Time matters: Different forms of change (plasticity) in the brain happen at different times during training.
7. Salience matters: The training experience must be meaningful to the person to cause change (plasticity).
8. Age matters: Training-induced change (plasticity) occurs more readily in younger brains.
9. Transference: Change in function as a result of one training experience can even lead to learning other similar skills.
10. Interference: Brain changes (plasticity) that result in bad habits can interfere with learning good habits.

We Are Here to Help

We look forward to sharing what we have learned and are introducing our residents and inviting you to follow us on our journey to discovering even more opportunities to improve the quality of life for our residents, their families, and our staff! Please get in touch with us if you have any questions about these new programs or if you have any general questions about our community.