Senior 2014 Stockholm

Between 14th and 16th October 2014 there's going to be a festival for active seniors held in Stockholm.

Senior Expo is an important event that will take place at Stockholm for three consecutive days. It arranges for some vital exhibitions that attract thousands of visitors and exhibitors to come at one place and build a good bond with each other. This event is made in such a way that will mingle both the activity programs along with environment which is the best measure for the visitors who are planning to attain this event. Senior Expo is going to be a major event mainly for the seniors. It will exhibit certain topics such as Travel and Tourism, Accommodation and Services, Fashion and Health, Health Care and Motor and Hobbies. It also holds a stage program with a wide variety of artists, fashion shows and travelogues.

It will have more than 117 exhibiting companies. This event will also hold exhibitions that hold media channels such as Advertisement and Exhibition Journal directed to 270 000 readers in the greater Stockholm area, Veteran SPF Member Journal and The pensioner PROs member magazine.

More at: http://www.seniormassan.se/

MEETING IN FINLAND

The final meeting of the project ACTIVE BODY + ACTIVE MIND = HEALTHY SENIOR
was held in Kouvola, Finland, on  24.-26.6.2014. There were 19 participants from the partner countries. Additionally, all in all 35 members of KuuRet 55+ also participated in various events of the meeting. The idea of the meeting was to find out and experience how nature and moving in the natural environment can support the health and well-being of seniors.  All partners have different opportunities to enjoy their natural surroundings in their own countries. Kouvola area especially offers a lot of opportunities to hike in the forest, go on picnic, boat on the many lakes and even pick natural produce like mushrooms and berries at certain times of the year.

                                   
                                           Hiidenvuori hill

Nordic walking is becoming more and more popular in many European countries.  This form of exercise  is good for muscles of legs, arms, neck etc. Walking along natural paths in the forest refreshes the mind and the body- In the forest you can enjoy the sounds of nature - and even a complete silence. During the meeting we did Nordic walking. We also hiked and had picnic in Repovesi National Park.

We also visited Verla Mill Museum which is a  Unesco World Heritage Site.

The participants were received at Kouvola Town Hall by persons responsible for senior citizens' services and benefits. During the visit they were told about different forms of services for elderly citizens. Afterwards there was the opportunity to get acquainted with the centre of Kouvola.

On the last evening of the meeting there was a social gathering in the garden of Olli and Pirjo Mattila. There  was singing and instrumental music - some participants even danced on the lawn. Some people enjoyed sauna and swimming in the river.  Everybody enjoyed a delicious dinner.  There was a bonfire by the river.  The evening was spent in a friendly atmosphere, and it was almost daylight although it was nearly midnight.

The group before setting off to a hiking tour in Repovesi National Park

Healthy ageing - Design criteria for the indoor environment for vital elderly

It's well known fact cognitive functions are decreasing when people are getting closer to their senior age. Researchers from Dutch university therefore conducted a study to find out the best living conditions for seniors, because they can be quite different from the conditions of younger people.
Several scientific studies show that the indoor environment affects alertness and cognitive performance of people (Wargocki and Wyon 2006; Fang, Wyon, Clausen, and Fanger 2004; De Gids et al. 2007; Kretschmer, Griefahn, and Schmidt 2011; Galván, Vessal, and Golley 2013). The study came to not so surprising conclusions, but it's interesting to think about cognitive performance throughout the life and the possible effect on the preferences and needs of seniors towards their homes/living environment. This may be for example the case of light need (when you're 25 years old, you need roughly 5 times less the illumination your 75 year old grandfather does) or thermal conditions in the room. Here are some of the thoughts from the study:

"To increase the wellbeing for vital elderly, the design criteria for the indoor environment should be changed because research shows that older and younger people, even in the same environment, respond differently to the indoor environment. The built environment strongly affects the working, learning, health, care and healing process, the support of older people and the reducing of errors, accidents, inconvenience and the (feeling of) insecurity. older people have a lower tolerance for uncomfortable situations than young people.
To which extent a built environment, according to, for example, the healing environment principle, is of influence on the health and the performance of older people and health care professionals is not yet to answer. For that more research is needed than is considered within the framework of this study. However, build with care for health offers the possibility to:
- reduce the chance of disease and (the feeling of) insecurity,
- stimulate physical and mental activity,
- offer support in the daily work and life operations.

After the above, it is obvious that older people have a lower tolerance for uncomfortable situations than young people. The built environment strongly affects the working, learning, health, care and healing process, the support of older people and the reducing of errors, accidents, inconvenience and the (feeling of) insecurity. The built environment with smart technology, is to arrange things in such a way that people are inspired, become more active, learn better and are less likely to get sick and be uncertain and heal faster, receive faster aid and are less likely to fall victim to accidents and are facilitated in a better manner in their activities. The largest cost for healthcare institutions is salaries and costs for delivering care. Investments in buildings are only a small part of the total cost. Investments in a healthy built environment bring several benefits."


Source:

Roelofsen, P. 2014. Healthy ageing - Design criteria for the indoor environment for vital elderly. Intelligent Buildings International [online]. 2014-01-02, vol. 6, issue 1, s. 11-25 [cit. 2014-06-24]. DOI: 10.1080/17508975.2013.830589. Retrieved from: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/17508975.2013.830589

Turner, P. L., E. J. Van Someren, and M. A. Mainster. 2010. The Role of Environmental Light in Sleep and Health: Effects of Ocular Aging and Cataract Surgery. Sleep Medicine Reviews 14: 269–280.

The University of the Third Age

For all active seniors and people in post-productive life, University of Ostrava gives you the opportunity to learn something new and make new social connections. You can join and study at the University of the Third Age in two programmes - European royal dynasties and Human, culture and arts in transformations of the regions history.The lectures will be once every two weeks from October to May for two years. One year will cost you only 800 CZK. The programmes can be joined by anyone who's in retirement age. So if you're interested, come to the official enrollment 16.6. from 9:30 in room E108, building E of University of Ostrava, Čs. legií 9. For more information, you can look at http://ff.osu.cz/u3v or call 597 091 813, contact person Ing. Petr Brzezny. Sources: Brzezny, P. (2014). Univerzita třetího věku na Filozofické fakultě OU.  http://ff.osu.cz/index.php?id=10393

Active body + Active mind = Healthy Senior meeting in Bratislava

Dear readers,

from 7^th to 10^th April 2014 meeting of Active body + Active mind = Healthy senior project was held in Bratislava. It focused on different topics connected with active ways of spending time for seniors like Yoga or Pilates. Participants from partner countries enjoyed interesting programme consisting of both cultural and active parts.
One of the activities was meeting of partners with mayor of Bratislava. He accepted them at new town hall and talked about how Bratislava tries to involve seniors in active way of living. Bratislava seniors can visit senior centres where they can gather instead of staying alone at home and also approach social workers available to them. In these centres there are also regular seminars and activities focused in different topics. The mayor also presented history of Bratislava and after the end of the meeting with mayor, meeting's participants went to look around Primate's Palace, which is where mayor's office is located.

(Mayor of Bratislava talking to participants of Active body + Active mind = Healthy Senior project's meeting)

Source: 

http://www.bratislava.sk/vismo/galerie3.asp?id_org=700000&id_fotopary=99648&id_obrazky=225008&typ_sady=1&p1=11051232

News: Research from Institute of Exercise and Health Sciences at University of Basel

Dear readers, we would like to inform you about interesting research.

Scientists from Institute of Exercise and Health Sciences at University of Basel in Switzerland conducted a research about effects of stair-climbing on balance, gait, strength, resting heart rate, and submaximal endurance. 39 seniors with average age of 70,5 completed this experiment.

As it is mentioned in the research paper: "Fall-related injuries in seniors seriously contribute to increasing health care utilizations and expenditures (Stevens et al., 2006). Aging-induced declines of strength, endurance, and balance performance have been reported to mainly account for severe fall events (Lord, 2007). Prospective studies revealed that higher levels of general physical activity may reduce overall morbidity and mortality (Bembom et al., 2009) as well as the risk of falling between 30% and 50% in seniors (Gillespie et al., 2012). Seniors should, thus, be encouraged to maintain or increase habitual physical activity levels (Chodzko-Zajko et al., 2009). In this regard, multimodal training regimens including strength, balance, and endurance tasks are considered important to reduce the risk of fatal and nonfatal falls as well as chronic cardiovascular and metabolic disease (Gardner et al., 2000)." (Gardner et al., 2000)." (Donath, L., O. Faude, R. Roth a L. Zahner, 2014)

In this case, even everyday activity like climbing a staircase instead of using an elevator can help. Results of three groups were compared – group of one- (taking every step, INT₁) or twostep strategy (every second step, INT₂) and a control group (CON). Maximal strength and explosive power did not improve significantly (0.10 < P < 0.78). Resting heart rate was significantly reduced in INT₂ (-8/min) compared with INT₁ (0/min, P = 0.02) and CON (0/min, P = 0.03). Compared with CON, perceived exertion for all intensities (0.007 < P < 0.03) and submaximal exercise heart rate during moderate uphill walking significantly decreased (-11/min; P < 0.05) in INT₂. Step counts for forward beam balancing (4.5 cm width) increased in INT₂ (P = 0.007) compared with CON.

With more pronounced effects in INT₂, stair-climbing significantly improved resting and exercise heart rates, perceived exertion, and dynamic balance performance in healthy seniors and may contribute to better overal fitness, reduced fall risk, and less perceived strain during daily life  activities. From this you can see that even a small effort to change your way of living can lead to significant results.

Source:

DONATH, L., O. FAUDE, R. ROTH a L. ZAHNER. Effects of stair-climbing on balance, gait, strength, resting heart rate, and submaximal endurance in healthy seniors. Scandinavian Journal of Medicine [online]. 2014, vol. 24, issue 2, e93-e101 [cit. 2014-03-27]. DOI: 10.1111/sms.12113. Available from: http://doi.wiley.com/10.1111/sms.12113

News: Project Active Senior started at Ostrava Poruba

Today, we would like to inform you about new ACTIVE Project realized in Ostrava Poruba.

Project Active Senior was initiated by city police officers in cooperation with Poruba town hall.

“This is a year-round program of lectures, excursions and trips, designed to promote education of seniors, provide them with guidance on behavior in crisis situations and also involve them in public life.”  says spokesman of Poruba town hall Jana Končítková.

At a joint meeting with officers and representatives of Poruba town hall on Wednesday in Leisure Centre on Vietnamská Ulice came two dozen seniors. Candidates were informed about the concept of the program and could fill in the application.

“Police officers will meet with seniors every three weeks and a part of the program will also include weekend trips and excursions. Seniors will revive legal awareness and obtain information and advices on how to behave in crisis situations and also in situations where they become victims of crime or witnesses of these negative social phenomena, by interesting form.” Said prevention group leader of Ostrava City Police Petra Stoklasová, and added that Active Senior project builds on previous year, which was successfully held in Moravian Ostrava, Ostrava Přívoz and Ostrava – Jih.

Active senior project is one of many activities for people of retirement age, at which the urban district Poruba participate. “In Poruba generations of seniors forms sizable portion of the population, so we pay them increased attention. Our Social Service Centre organizes series of lectures titled Senior Self-Defense in nursing homes each month and last year we started the project Safety for Poruba seniors. All these activities have the same goal – to enhance the safety of seniors and actively involve them in the protection against fraudsters and rapists.” said the mayor of the city district Lumír Palyza.

Source:  http://www.regiony24.cz/11-114171-v-ostrave-porube-odstartoval-projekt-aktivni-senior

Senior Club Litoměřice

For active lifestyle, you need to be healthy, and for maintaining health, regular exercise is necessary. The Municipality of Litoměřice knows that for sure. They organize regular events like: Reconditioning exercise under guidance of professional trainer (every Monday and Thursday, from 8 to 9am). They also prepare singing lessons every Thursday from 2pm, and borrow some books to people. On Monday 20th of January, there was also a trip called „Travelling in Cyprus“ and on 27th of January Memory training event.

As you can see, there are plenty of events for our ACTIVE seniors in Litoměřice. It only remains to go to one of them.

Link to Litoměřice websites (in Czech):

http://radnice.litomerice.cz/dokument-1120888.html

Sedukon o.p.s.

SEDUKON o. p. s. was established in Ostrava as a non-profit company in 2001. Company SEDUKON is reserve as a non-profit organization, while the scope of the organization in Ostrava extended to Prague. Our activities are focused primarily on:

·         Education and vocational courses with emphasis on the development of innovative educational methods.

·         Education and personal development of differentiated groups of disadvantaged people with regard to the needs of their integration into the socio-economic environment of the Czech Republic.

·         Initiation, implementation and collaboration in projects co-financed by the European Union, both at national and international level.

·         Organizing courses, workshops and providing employment advice.

·         Cross-border cooperation and networking.

The company is one of the major regional non-profit organization focusing primarily on education and follow-up activities. SEDUKON, through cooperation with foreign partners and implementation of international experience, contributing substantially to better and more successful form of education in the Czech Republic.

Projects aimed at seniors:

Competencies for Seniors in Action

The project aim is to create strong partnership ready to efficient an offer of the solution for qualification and competences by expansion of the capacity a work structure of older people, to create considerable activities in their communities at European level.

Project partners:	XIBO Center (Romania)
	SEDUKON, o. p. s. (Czech republic)
	LEAM Développement et Gestion de Projets (France)
	Hungarian Telecottage Association (Hungary)
	AGORA – Associazione Culturale (Italy)
	Joniškio rajono švietimo centras (Lithuania)
	Krośnieński Uniwersytet Trzeciego Wieku (Poland)
	Akdeniz Üniversitesi Elmali Meslek Yüksek Okulu (Turkey)
	Arber Enterprises Ltd. (Great Britain)

Project description:

Ageing has a significant impact to the social perception of human, despite of this older people are still placed in a disadvantaged positions. In their effort to keep a balance for the situation, the NGOs which assumed missions on this matter have to face the lack of funds and the isolation from other contacts that could nurture their need of learning and exchange experiences

The project aims creates a strong partnership to offer solutions to building up capacities of the organization structure and achieving a higher activity and efficiency of elderly person in their communities at the European level.

The target group members are employees of non-governmental organizations working with elderly people. Target group contains of NGOs or other structures working with older people.

Activities/Outcomes:

·         Training PC courses, fundraising, writing and implementing project (introduction of the Grundtvig Programme) and foreign language courses.

·         Stimulate the cooperation between the target organizations: participation in the international meetings and workshops organized within the project – opportunities to establish contacts, discover cultural values, define common domain of interest, identifying a team building and sharing experiences.

·         The main project result shows the draft of a new international project created by the target groups, underlying the force of involvement of older people in community-level actions and wider.

Program 50+

Sedukon company project. in order to increase the employability of people over 50 years.

Project description:

The project is focused  at increasing employment and employability of persons older than 50 years in the Moravian Region.

Goal of the project is an individual approach to provide advice and support to 28 selected participants of the project - 16 candidates and 12 interested for jobs over 50 years.

The project will contribute to addressing the specific situations and problems of project participants in the labor market through:

-       -      Providing individual support and motivation of the target group (work, balance diagnostics, consultations, individual job counseling)

-       -      Raising the skills of the target group through the courses:

1)     Master in production

2)     Welding course

3)     The driver of the lorry

4)     Salesman

5)     Worker in banking

-       -      Support the creation of new jobs

ACTIVE SENIOR 2012 PROJECT 

is already past half-way.

Our Finnish group has been quite active both locally (learning the subjects included in the project programme) and internationally in taking part in the project meetings in Czech Republic, Turkey, Portugal and Greece.  The project, and especially the meetings in other countries have been very interesting for our members.  We have learned a lot about the culture of other partner countries and have enjoyed the
trips and the hospitality of the host organisations very much.  The travels have also inspired us to find out new ways of activity within our group here in Finland.

Reflexology for Mirja in Athens

Finnish group at the European Fair

Miikka, Eero and Tauno on the Acropolis

                                                    *   *   *   *   *   *   *

We are almost 40 active seniors.  We have a general meeting once a month.. Additionally we arrange different events.  In November we made a tour to Tampere, about 200 km from Kouvola.  We saw a theater performance-  The name of the play was "My heart hurts".  It was a partly humorous story about ageing and the problems with the cervices in health care.  Afterwards we had a lunch and visited an exhibition on Chinese Terra Cotta soldiers from the time of the first Chinese Emperor in 220' s B.C.
Before Christmas there was a Christmas party at a Club House in a museum area in Verla village.
Our group entertained the inhabitants of a sheltered home.  There were Christmas Carols and plays.
At our December meeting rice porridge, Christmas pastries  and coffee were served.   In addition to other points Christmas music was on the agenda.   Meeri and Eira presented  the idea of reflexology, and how it helps.  Other things that we learned in Athens were dealt with at our previous meeting in November.

Lesson on Reflexology 

Rice porridge is a typical food at Christmas