Good buddy, good Bundy, good morning. Welcome, welcome, welcome,
and it is time now for our community connection right here on K one,
the one you trust. We have Angie Thompson in here with us from Eldercare,
and a very good morning to you, young lady. I mean,
happy holidays, Tom. We're just about there, just a few days from
Christmas, and yeah, I'm glad to be here. You know something that
Eldercare has recently celebrated forty years in our community and actually serving all of northeast
Oklahoma. But there are a lot of things that we learned about Eldercare,
and there are a lot of things that we need to learn about Eldercare,
because my goodness sinks. We were just talking in the green room, and
folks, we really don't have a green room. We just kind of pretended
to television. You got next thing, you know, we got em and
m's and everything going on back there anyway. But we were talking about some
of the things that have been going on for quite a while, and I
thought I knew most every thing about the programs that were available through Eldercare,
And boy was I'm mis mistaken. We got more than you know, and
we'll bring our staff back in the next few weeks to you know, really
share more about these in detail. But I think there's you know, programs
like the Power Moves, which is the Parkinson Wellness Recovery program. We've been
holding that at Eldercare for several years. They meet twice a week Mondays and
Wednesdays at noon, and it's for individuals who've been diagnosed with Parkinson's at any
stage of that disease. And the whole goal is to meet, to socialize,
to be a support system for each other and those you know who may
be living at home with someone who has Parkinson's. But the movements, the
exercise exercise movements are intended to keep the body and brain engaged their large their
life. What we call functional movements, you know, things you're going to
use every day to pick something up off the floor, to be able to
get up and down out of a chair, to reach something off of a
shelf, you know, just to make normal movements. And sometimes what happens
with the disease is it causes our bodies to shrink, you know, from
how we connect to our limbs to how we speak. So everything about the
Parkinson wellness recovery program is exercise focused and it keeps the movements large and repetitive,
just to keep the body and muscles strong and engaged with the brain.
So when your brain says move here, your body does what your brain asks
it to do. So, yeah, that's on Mondays and Wednesdays, and
it's called the Parkinson's Wellness Recovery We call it Power Moves for it short.
But it's a national program and we at Eldercare are the site for the Bartlesville
and regional area. For those who would like to participate, they just need
to call Foundation Therapy Specialists at seven six six three nine one, talk to
Heather and you know, start seeing their best life on Mondays and Wednesdays at
noon right there at Eldercare. Wow, we you know, you just gave
a lot of hope to some people who didn't think that they had much.
You get that diagnosis and you know you don't know what to do, you
don't know where to turn, and yeah, you start thinking that, well,
you know, my options are slim to none, and slim just left
town. And now this just gave a whole lot of hope to a whole
lot of people. I understand that during the course of the progression of the
disease of Parkinson's, it sometimes the voice actually starts to get lighter and less
less projects less. Yeah, exactly. And you know, you know Abby
Peterman, she's been a part of Yeah, elder Care for a while,
and she's appeared with us here on community connections. So smart got little ones
now, yeah she does. I mean she's doing so many things in the
community. But she is our speech language pathologists there at Elder Care, so
bright and talented, and she works with the loud crowd, and that again
is another national chain, and it helps individuals who may have been diagnosed with
Parkinson's to keep their voices stronger. You know, a lot of that is
tied to you know, breath and development, the brain activity, moving the
you know, telling the voice to speak in a certain way or the diaphragm
and the breath to move in a certain way. So those exercises also help
individuals who may be experiencing that shrinking feeling, you know that withdrawing feeling.
She gives you exercises to boost your speech, and you know that just increases
your confidence. You know, Tom when you think about exercise and even exercising
your voice and all of the mechanisms that are involved in speaking or singing.
You know, just developing that gives you a great deal of confidence that,
man, I can live my best life I can interact socially with people.
Again. You know, it's just an eye opening and engaging opportunity for people.
We don't want people to shrink back. We want them to live their
best life for you know, every stage of their life. I can't imagine
not being loud. Oh yeah, it's good to know. It's good to
know that. So if you lose that skill time, you know where to
go for future reference. But you know, and so many different things have
happened over this past year, and when you put it all together, it's
kind of like the you know, the Greatest Hits photo while Yeah, because
like wow we did that. Wow we had a forty year anniversary, and
we we had so many people we couldn't put any more in the room.
Right, that's the way it happens. Yeah, you know, when you
look back, and it's always good, I think to kind of take stock
of where you are and what you've accomplished over a certain period of time.
It really helps fuel you for the next twelve months, and thankfully that's what
we've been doing over the last few weeks is taking a look at twenty twenty
three because that was our anniversary year. You know, we wanted to celebrate.
We held extra events in our building just to introduce more people to the
services at Eldercare. We had Miss Oklahoma in March. We had Cynthia Simmons
who was a featured artist at south By Southwest. She came in and was
our entertainment for our Valentine party. We held a series of Alzheimer's in our
community events, really well panels, you know, we had a full house
every time. I think we held three or four of those panel discussions and
the room was full every time. And then we held the Downsizing after Decades
series and that was another popular series, in full room every time, and
those were the two series that people afterwards said, please do this again.
So it was really terrific to be able to put that out for the community.
But we had over one thousand, almost eleven hundred individuals come to our
events at elder Care. And I'm including in that our fortieth celebration that we
held offside at Trick County Tech event center. But think of that number.
Sometimes I'm not talking about programs, you know, not talking about daybreak or
physical therapy people, our community engagement programs from January, and I'm including in
that the numbers for our memory screening event that's coming up next Thursday. But
I heard good things about that. Yeah, I mean, I mean after
we ran that story and thank you for doing that, the event filled up
completely, you know, and I'm sure they'll want to come back because that
is significant. But you know, you think about the relationships that we were
able to form, not just with those individuals who came and sat in the
seats, but people like doctor Land. You know, she came in November.
She has the Central States Research Clinic in Tulsa. She came in November
to hold a seminar on progressive treatments for Alzheimer's and dementia, and she wanted
a tour, so we gave her a tour of our building. You know.
One of the first things she said when she turned to her assistant was
said, let's see if we can use Elder Care as a screening site.
And as it happened, you know, we were able to put that together
in just a matter of weeks. She was so impressed with our staff and
our facility and the need. You know, the people in her seminar that
day asked very intelligent questions about the disease and treatment. She was so impressed
with that entire experience that she wanted to come back and use Elder Care as
the screening site. So I know they will be back in future months.
They just there was just too much interest for them to not want to come
back. You know, we're hard to ignore. We are, you know,
leading edge kind of treatments for Alzheimer's and dementia. But you think about
the relationships that we were able to form over twenty twenty three. We were
able to re engage with individuals from our past who were part of our legacy,
you know, like Mary Lou Bork, Betty Sammer. You know,
think of Roger Box, Joe Anne Gallery, Betty Kine, Elizabeth Thrash,
individuals who were part of our early early early days. Bob Bogue, our
very first board president, came to our fortieth celebration just to be able to
re engage with people so they could see how forty years later, the vision
and the mission is still there. You know, our programs are active and
we're meeting the need in the community. We're a regional resource center on all
things aging in place. Daybreak Adult Day Health our flagship program. You know,
we're still going strong and I encourage people. You know, if you're
caring for a loved one at home during the holiday, this is the more
perfect time to let your loved one come and enjoy socialization, therapeutic art,
to be with peers who may be experiencing the same things they are. Give
them an opportunity to be with people that they can engage with while you also
enjoy you know, maybe decorating your tree, or having lunch with friends,
or playing golf with someone. But this is a time of the year for
joy and elder care. Daybreak Adult Day Health Center is one of the opportunities
that you can take advantage of for a little bit of joy in the month
of December. One thing, kids, you got to put yourself in your
parents' place. Yes, okay, you know how you feel. Guess what
your adult parents feel the same thing you do. They would like to have
relationships, they would like to have friendships, They would like to be around
other people. They don't want to be sitting at home just being a lump
on the couch. They want to be active, they really do, just
like you do. So you know, there's no mystery here. You know,
you and your parents, your loved ones who are aging in place right
now, you have the same thoughts, the same the same feelings, you
know. So let's let's kind of access that nexus which is taken out to
elder care and just see what's available. And this daybreak is really quite the
eye opener for a lot of people, not just for the adult, the
season citizen who's going to benefit from it. You're going to benefit from it
too, the family, everyone does, you know. And I know we're
running out of time, but I just got to I just got to say,
we've got great activities in daybreak in the month of December. We have
an elementary school choir coming to sing and the Bartlesfield Symphony Orchestra brass quintette is
going to come play Christmas carols for daybreak. I met a lady last week
who her mother was visiting her and she brought her mom for the day.
Both of them just had expressions of joy on their face. You know,
the mom was going to be able to participate in therapeutic art, exercise,
have a five course lunch, you know, and be with yeah, you
know, be with friends who are her age and her daughter was it was
a release. I could just see the joy on her face. I'm giving
my mom something that's going to make her happy today. You know. That's
that's really what we want families to experience. And that's what elder care is
about. It's about aging in place. It's not reidential facility, folks.
So if you're new to the community and you're hearing about Eldercare for the first
time, it is not a residential community at all. Nothing can be further
from the truth. This is to help you age in place with dignity and
independent right Monday through Friday. Daybreak offers transportation. They're available seven thirty to
five thirty. But they can see all of our fabulous programs on our website
about eldercare dot org and it's just all one word about eldercare dot org.
Or they can call us nine one, eight, three three six eighty five
hundred. And that's the coolest clubhouse in town. It is. I love
that twelve twenty one drive. You can't miss it. Thank you very much.
Angie for being with us. Thank you. We wish everyone a happy
holiday and we'll see you in twenty twenty four. All right, that's great.
We got a lot more to celeb