Aging Gracefully: Informed Choices for Health, Wellness, and Well-Being
Presented by Cheryl Van Demark
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Meet your instructor
Cheryl Van Demark
Cheryl Van Demark is a physical therapist, yoga therapist, and yoga teacher with a master’s degree in physical education and exercise science. She is approaching 40 years of helping individuals optimize body alignment, restore movement, build strength, and cultivate a balance in body, mind, and spirit to pursue joyful living.…
Chapters & learning objectives
1. Adaptation
As the famous saying goes, “It is not the strongest species that survive; it is the ones most adaptable to change.” Change is a universal constant, yet humans tend to be change averse. Such dissonance is inherently stressful! Adapting to identification as an “older adult” (60 and over) significantly challenges our relationship to change. Developing successful strategies for stress coping and acceptance influences our resiliency and psychoneuroendocrine capacity to age gracefully.
2. Are NCDs a Choice?
NCDs (non-communicable diseases) are prevalent comorbid conditions in older adults. These lifestyle-mediated chronic disease states lead many in their “golden years” to lament not having taken better care of themselves. Helping patients understand the unique integration of the many socioeconomic, genetic, environmental, behavioral, and societal conditioning factors that have shaped their health status lays the personal groundwork for self-compassion and self-efficacy, empowering their change-making, and illustrates the need for inter-professional collaboration to establish wellness and well-being as a necessary components in all health care.
3. Believing We Can Change
The etymology of “rehabilitation” suggests we can make fit to live in this home that is our body-mind-spirit. Empowering older adults to embrace themselves as still biologically dynamic and embace neuroplasticity in their ongoing home remodeling process is a key concept. Clinicians, patients, and caregivers can train our attention to discern experiences, environments, and choices that can consciously and unconsciously promote or demote wellness, well-being, and potential for successful rehabilitation.
