Articles
The Journal on Active Aging brings articles of value to professionals dedicated to older-adult quality of life. Content sweeps across the active-aging landscape to focus on education and practice. Find articles of interest by searching the article archives in three ways: Enter a keyword in the articles search bar; click on search by topic; or type a keyword or phrase in the general search bar at the top of the page.
Support spiritual wellness through creative outdoor design by Jack Carman, FASLA, and Nancy Carman, MA, CMC
Wellness—it’s a concept we are instinctively drawn to. As health and wellness professionals, to instill wellness in a community or facility, we need to break it down into various components to help us understand its role in creating positive quality of life. Of all the dimensions of wellness—physical, social, intellectual, emotional, spiritual and vocational—spiritual wellness may be the most personal and possibly the hardest for us to quantify. Yet spiritual wellness is also the dimension that adds depth and meaning to the other five.
What does spiritual wellness mean? In 1975, the term “spiritual well-being” was defined by the National Interfaith Coalition on Aging, a National Council on Aging special interest group, as “the affirmation of life in relationship with God, self, community and environment that nurtures and celebrates wholeness.” The spiritual aspect of wellness, as defined by the National Wellness Institute, “recognizes our search for meaning and purpose in human existence.” It is a lifelong journey in which we seek ways that demonstrate “values through behaviors, such as meditation, prayer and contemplation of life/death, as well as appreciating beauty, nature and life.”
Community design
Step up physical activity with the sport of flyball by Mary E. Sanders, PhD, FACSM, RCEP
John Tresise’s goal was to take charge of his health. The 69-year-old weighed too much and had diabetes plus other health-related issues. So he joined Energy BALANCE (Behavior And Lifestyle Assessment with Nutrition Centered Education), our individualized, comprehensive weight loss and wellness program at the University of Nevada School of Medicine. This program in the Division of Endocrinology, Nutrition and Metabolism is led by a team of physicians, dieticians and an exercise physiologist. Our provider team listened to John’s stories, evaluated his health status, and developed medical, nutritional and exercise goals to meet his objectives.
morePhysical wellness
ICAA work group presents white paper on the environment
As a result of member input during the ICAA 2020 visioning process (sponsored by Morrison Senior Living to prepare the active-aging industry for the future), as well as recognition of international trends, the International Council on Active Aging® added “environment” to its multidimensional model of wellness in 2010. ICAA also raised the priority of the environment by making it one of the association’s five strategies for the future. The specific strategy states: “Preserve the future, access the power of older adults and sustain the greater good through attention to environmental choices.”
moreICAA initiatives
Spiritual wellness: finding connections for optimal health and successful aging by Donald DeMars, AIA, IIDA
When Colin Milner, founder of the International Council on Active Aging® and publisher of this Developer’s Guide, invited me to submit an article on spiritual wellness, I thought to myself, “Why, my entire life has prepared me to write an article on this subject!” I’m certainly in the “aging cycle” at the age of 67. I’ve had my share of life’s challenges. I’m still extremely productive, and happy every day—all of this I attribute to my spiritual wellness.
Beginnings
Although I’ve spent the last 30 years as an architect and development consultant helping people achieve optimal environments for health, it was an eventful journey reaching this profession.
Beginning with a difficult encounter with polio at age 10 that included two years in an iron lung and left me with paralysis, some back deformity and years of rehabilitative surgeries, I’ve spent my life living with limited vital capacity and post-polio syndrome. I had supportive parents, and the good fortune to encounter a dynamic “significant other”—a young Lutheran pastor who took an interest in me and encouraged me to think about the ministry. This gave my life direction, and motivated me to catch up the four years of school I had missed in just one year’s time. I graduated from college and spent almost three years in the seminary, including one year of clinical counseling training. How then did I become an architect? And what has all of this to do with spiritual wellness? In my third year of seminary, I found out who I was and what I was really meant to do. I left to pursue art and design (it’s in my genes!) and a new calling: To design and develop health and fitness environments conducive to creating quality of life at any age.
More than nourishment: a wellness approach to dining services by Maureen Janowski, RD, LDN
Food is at the heart of many cultures and it is certainly a focal point in most senior living communities. Twenty years ago, the word food would have conjured up two images in the retirement community environment: nourishment and socialization. Planning a healthy menu and ensuring a pleasant dining experience were the main priorities. In terms of diet, food was thought of as a reactive treatment—what foods to avoid or limit. In today’s world, we now know that food can be proactive. It is more than nourishment and socialization.
moreEnvironmental wellness
Dynamic spaces that foster social well-being by Cornelia C. Hodgson, AIA
In the past decade, there has been a sea change in the approach senior living communities take towards wellness, a philosophy that promotes enrichment of life. Providers are increasingly moving from a medical model to a resident-centered focus—shifting the emphasis in their communities from illness to wellness and from disability to ability. Because of this profound shift in thinking, wellness centers are now vital to such settings. These centers have become a key element in a project’s financial success, and are often used to revitalize an aging community or attract prospective residents to a new development.
A successful wellness center begins with identifying and communicating “written wellness objectives for the community.”1 The written objectives guide the development of operational programs of wellness, as well as design directives for a building that supports the various wellness dimensions.
