Brooke interviews Nicole Wethington, MSU Extension, about the many programs upcoming for older adults. A January highlight is a one -hour presentation about the differences between assisted living and nursing home care.
Kitty and Brooke give the calendar of events happening through January.
Brooke interviews Nicole Wethington, MSU Extension, about the many programs upcoming for older adults. A January highlight is a one -hour presentation about the differences between assisted living and nursing home care.
Kitty and Brooke give the calendar of events happening through January.
Good morning. This is Kitty Glomski along with
Brooke:my cohost Brooke Mainville
Kitty Glomski:from Region 9 Area Agency and Aging and another episode of Let's Talk About Aging.
Brooke Mainville:Good morning. This is Brooke and I have a special guest Nicole Wethington with MSU Extension. Welcome Nicole.
Nicole Wethington:Thanks for having me.
Brooke Mainville:This is your first time on our podcast, correct?
Nicole Wethington:It is but we worked together on a lot of other programs.
Brooke Mainville:Yes, we have for almost five years now. Can you believe that?
Nicole Wethington:Goes by fast.
Brooke Mainville:We're both community partners helping older adults. Do you want to tell us a little bit more about MSU and your involvement?
Nicole Wethington:Michigan State University extension is the community education arm of the university. We take the resources and the knowledge from the university and bring it into all of our different communities. Extension has a presence in all of our counties across the state, and we have a lot of different topic areas. I teach typically to older adults. But we also have agriculture, we have 4-H, youth development, we have early childhood, we have tourism. So it's really a little bit of everything for everyone. The mission is really to take that knowledge and help people improve their lives with it.
Brooke Mainville:That is so great, I didn't know that you cover every county of Michigan, and you cover our 12 counties, as well then.
Nicole Wethington:We do, we're all across the state and there are lots of people like me around the state teaching classes.
Brooke Mainville:We need more people like you in our community. You've been a speaker for our caregiver webinar series. We have one coming up in December, so do you want to talk a little bit about that?
Nicole Wethington:Absolutely. We're talking about stress and how that impacts our caregiving journey because we know we can't pour from an empty cup. To be able to be an effective caregiver, we've gotta make sure we're taking care of ourselves, managing our stress level, our needs, so that we can do the best we can for our care receiver. I agree.
Brooke Mainville:Our webinar is December 9th, the second Friday from 1:00 to 2:00, it's free, it's recorded so if you do miss it, it is on our NEMCSA Region 9 Area Agency on Aging Facebook page. Nicole is a great speaker. She's one of my favorites. I always take away something beneficial from her presentations. And, you and I both work, with Powerful Tools for Caregivers.
Nicole Wethington:We do, that's one of my favorite workshops to do. Powerful Tools for Caregivers- if you haven't taken it, we recommend it. It's a six week evidence based program that really follows along with that webinar information too. It goes a little bit deeper into how do we, follow through on caregiving and take care of ourselves, making sure that we're having some of the tough conversations, managing our stress levels and participants love it.
Brooke Mainville:Yeah, they do. Powerful Tools for Caregivers and we offer it in person and virtual.
Nicole Wethington:I love the virtual option and it's great to have both. So whatever people prefer, we can manage.
Brooke Mainville:Especially Northern Michigan with winter around the corner. It's so nice to provide these as a virtual option instead of being on the road. Speaking of winter, we have our fall prevention workshop as well that we do.
Nicole Wethington:Yes, we have a Matter of Balance. That one is fantastic for anyone who's looking to build some strength and improve their balance. We get to do some exercises. That's always my favorite part.
Brooke Mainville:Yeah, I think it's the participant's favorite part as well and you do a great job demonstrating them. We also have our upcoming Diabetes Path workshop around the corner.
Nicole Wethington:That one's great for giving participants tools to manage their diabetes, really becoming a great self-manager.
Brooke Mainville:Those are a lot of the programs that we're fortunate we're able to work with you on. What are some of the programs that Region 9 doesn't offer that you offer?
Nicole Wethington:We've got quite a list. One of my favorite topics is mindfulness. I have a few different options for that. Whether you want a one time presentation to get an introduction to mindful breathing, or you want an eight week practice intensive our Mindfulness for Wellbeing can cover that. We also have Stress Less with Mindfulness that I find a lot of caregivers really enjoy. That leads right into our Relaxed class. That's a four week series and it's working on being able to manage our emotions. It focuses a lot on anger and the way that we are experiencing that, especially in stress. All of these are options to give us different tools to manage some of those big stressors. I also teach Tai Chi for Arthritis, and Fall Prevention. A lot of our Matter of Balance folks enjoy that one. It's an evidence based program that really works with the same kind of ideas as a Matter of Balance in a little different form. We talk a lot about weight distribution, weight transfer. How do we step, how do we train our bodies so that way we can stay upright, even if we're walking on ice.
Brooke Mainville:And Nicole are those virtual or in person?
Nicole Wethington:Both, we can offer those virtually and we offer those in person as well. I cover seven of my core counties, so I travel and and deliver every year in person. And then I also have a variety of online programs.
Brooke Mainville:Great. And the sleep workshop.
Nicole Wethington:Yes, that's one of our newest and participants are loving that one. We worked with a researcher from Michigan State University, and she was able to develop this sleep program that takes all of the best practices that we know to help us fall asleep more quickly, get better quality of sleep be able to fall back to sleep and we put that into a six week series. That one I'm offering this winter online because I find that people really enjoy it and can put that into practice right away.
Brooke Mainville:Sleep is so important for so many different things and a lot of things people don't even connect to their sleeping habits.
Nicole Wethington:It impacts all of our health, whether it's mental health or physical health. So it's really important that we're getting that good quality sleep.
Brooke Mainville:One, what is the cost to attend these? And two, how does someone find out where and when these workshops are being presented?
Nicole Wethington:All of these workshops are free. They are either grant funded or covered by Michigan State University Extension, so participants can sign up without any cost. To find out about our programs, they can visit the MSU extension website or they can call my office. That phone number is(989) 344-3264 and extension zero puts you to Jamie. And she knows all the programs that I have going on and can help get anyone connected to a program they're interested in. We do have some self-referral programs, so anytime someone's interested, they can call the office and we can take their name and the next time we offer one of those programs, or if another instructor's offering it online, we can put them in that program. And we have that self-referral form on the website so people can put their information in for anything they're interested in and we'll get back to them.
Brooke Mainville:This is some good information. Honestly, I need to try some of your online stress reducing workshops, especially around the holidays coming up.
Nicole Wethington:It's a stressful time of year for everyone and I do see a spike in enrollment, which is wonderful because people are taking advantage of the tools.
Brooke Mainville:There's no limit of how many workshops they can take. Right. Nicole? They see a benefit of attending one. They can attend two to three.
Nicole Wethington:Absolutely. They can join all of them, and I will typically share out some workshops when we finish one, and sometimes people spend the whole year with me popping in and out.
Brooke Mainville:Thank you so much for being here today, Nicole. I know we got some great information and I hope to have you back as a speaker again and check out a lot of these resources Nicole talked about today.
Nicole Wethington:Thanks so much for having me.
Kitty Glomski:This is Kitty Glomski and Brooke Mainville, with the Calendar of Events. Brooke, you have a Diabetes Path class. It's an interactive online workshop that begins November 16th and runs through December 21st. That's six weeks on every Wednesday from 1:00 to 3:00 PM. Again, that's a Diabetes Path online workshop.
Brooke Mainville:We have our Powerful Tools for Caregivers workshop virtually meeting on January 11th, and going till February 15th, 2023 from 10 to 11:30. So it's a morning session for those caregivers. We also have our Caregiver webinar series on the second Friday of January, so that would be the 13th from 1:00 to 2:00. It's free. It's Nursing Homes versus Assisted Living. The speaker is going to talk about the difference between nursing homes and assisted living, the different types of care and services that they receive in both, how to research information on the facility, and then how to also find inspections, reports was there anything reported? If you're thinking about placing a loved one in one of these, you could get the information and the differences between them. You could register for both of these items through contacting me. That's 989-358-4616. Again, that was 989-358-4616 or you can email me at mainvilleb@nemcsa.org. My information is on our website in our Facebook page So we would love to have you, and those are my two events. So Powerful Tools for Caregivers, six week online workshop, or a one hour caregiver webinar on the Differences Between Assisted Living Homes and Nursing Homes. That's all I have for the calendar of events.
Kitty Glomski:Thank you, Brooke. With the Medicare Medicaid Assistance Program, we also have a New to Medicare virtual presentation. This happens every second Wednesday of each month from 10:00 to 11:00. This is for anyone who is turning 65, new to Medicare, or disabled and new to Medicare. This presentation explains how Medicare works. Then afterwards you get to meet one on one with a counselor and talk about your personal situation. To register, you can call 1-800-803-7174 or contact your local Senior Center, your Commission or Council on Aging, and they can make the appointment for you. So this is Kitty Glomski and Brooke Mainville asking you to join us again next time on Let's Talk About Aging.
Carla:Let's Talk About Aging is a production of the Region 9 Area Agency on Aging, 2569 US 23 South, Alpena, Michigan 4 9 7 0 7. This Podcast was supported, in part, by grant number 90MPPG0039 from the US Administration for Community Living, Department of Health and Human Services, Washington, DC. Podcast music provided by Groove Music, selection titled"Modern Logo," created by Vadym Kuznietsov and can be found at https://elements.envato.com/modern-logo-ZVHFBJ6