Reigniting health and wellness
A program which provides simple lifestyle strategies to improve physical and cognitive function, as well as emotional wellbeing in one holistic program, has won the Team Innovation Award at the 2014 HESTA Aged Care Awards.
Developed by a team of Western Australian allied health professionals, the team from Ageing Wisely — who provide wellness services to retirement living facilities — won the national award for developing the Re3 Wellness Program.
The program name ‘Re3’ is derived from the words ‘re-generate’ the body, ‘re-ignite’ the mind and ‘re-discover’ happiness.
Paula Fiévez, Ageing Wisely managing director, said the program adopted a holistic approach to address age related degeneration such as sarcopenia (loss of muscle mass), osteoporosis and reduced cognitive function.
During the five month trial of the program, participants aged between 60 to 92 years attended education workshops and practical training sessions on key lifestyle strategies.
“Using equipment similar to that used for testing NASA astronauts, the team saw improvements in participants in every physical parameter, as well as cognitive function and reduced incidences of depression,” Ms Fiévez said.
This included improvements in lower body strength (55%), upper body strength (42%), balance (52%), pulmonary function (23%), cognitive function, (10%) and depression (20%).
The Re3 Wellness Program Team received a $10,000 development grant, courtesy of long term HESTA awards supporter, ME Bank. The prize money will allow the team to introduce the program into 10 new retirement living facilities across Western Australia.
