research
healthcare
AGE SELF CARE: a program for older adults
🏆 Selected as Presidential E-Poster for AGS 2024
🏆 Nominated for Lightning Session Poster for AGS 2024
Understanding the feasibility of an innovative program that empowers older adults in age in place.
What is aging in place?
Aging in place is the practice of living in one's home and community safely, independently, and comfortably to maintain a high quality of life as an individual grows older.
Most older adults want to age in place, but find it difficult
There aren’t many aging in place programs and resources for older adults. Most older Americans want to age in place, but lack the knowledge, resources, or ability to do so.
Older adults need in-home support without the social and financial stress, as nursing homes & assisted living facilities can be costly and undesirable to some.
There are few programs that currently help older adults: CAPABLE, Village, and NCOA. Our study aims to understand the feasibility of synthesizing the goal of these three programs into one educational program for older adults in the San Francisco Bay Area.
AGE SELF CARE helps older adults age in place
AGE SELF CARE is an educational program for older adults, consisting of an evidence-based curriculum that empowers older adults to improve their health, modify their home to be more age-friendly, and diversify their social network and support systems. It was designed collaboratively by experts from UCSF, AHWGO, and SFV.
The curriculum is based on health, home & social network improvement, home modifications, caregiving, support networks, and digital literacy. The program is as follows:
Mini-lectures
Education on evidence-based approaches to improving health, home, and social networks
Home activities
Between-class, take-home activities where participants apply their learning to their unique lives
Group discussion
Discussing, troubleshooting, and sharing successes/challenges of home activities with peers and facilitators
I was involved from qualitative data collection & onwards
Curriculum development
Recruitment
Qualitative data collection
Rapid and thematic data analysis
Literature review
Manuscript development
Key findings of the study: prospective impacts of the program
Home modification
Participants reported making low-cost home modifications to make their living space safer
Newly gained confidence
Participants developed a new perspective on aging and became more confident
Platform for social opportunity
ASC was a platform for social opportunity and was a strong support system for all participants
An unexpected (but heart-warming) finding
AGE SELF CARE was originally intended to equip the participants with an extended support network consisting of professionals and volunteers that would help empower them with resources to independently age in place. However, towards the end of the program, the participants became well-acquainted with others in the group as they offered advice, shared life stories, and discussed their experiences with aging to one another. The program blossomed into a platform for friendships and social connection.
Programs like ASC can improve health, social, and physical spaces
The observed and reported changes in behaviors, mindsets, and actions within this small group of older adults proved that a program like AGE SELF CARE can truly empower older adults to age in place and be independent for as long as possible.
To the researchers' surprise, many participants expressed their desire to continue the program and keep in contact with other participants. It was reported that many of them still stay in contact with each other 💌
Learnings from conducting this research
Rather than you facilitating the research, let the participants do so too
Embrace the idea that participants are the core of the study, and you can leave the study with better insights than you originally intended. Rather than solely directing the research, empower the participants to shape its course; because the facilitators of this study encouraged this, we were able to deduce one of the most important findings of this study: that the program was a platform for social opportunity and friendship.
The importance of mentorship
I received the big task of taking over the manuscript development as an undergrad - an incredibly intimidating task to say the least! Luckily, I had an incredible team of support around me that was receptive to my questions, concerns, and confusions. I learned that asking for help in these situations is good, even mandatory, in order to produce great work.
Research across disciplines
Reflecting on this kind of research to UX research – I notice an abundance of transferable skills, knowledge, and techniques that I now use in UX. What I find most similar is the importance of understanding people and their expected versus observed behaviors, and what role the researcher can play in morphing the study into something the participants can truly benefit from.
