Peer group helps seniors break out of the cage of chronic disease
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Teri Bridgett, left, 62, of East Liberty practices zumba with other student at the Union Project building in Highland Park.
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Teri Bridgett remembers several years ago being afraid even to do chores in her own home and feeling dependent on others while recovering from hip and knee replacement surgery.
The 62-year-old East Liberty resident with osteoarthritis, spinal stenosis and diabetes was once a prisoner of the pain that accompanies the chronic conditions of a large percentage of the aging population. But after attending a Vintage senior center program developed at Stanford University and replicated nationally, she's regained the independence of her younger life.
Ms. Bridgett is now gardening, dancing, exercising, eating right and mentoring others her age and older with chronic conditions to do likewise. She's a peer leader and master trainer in the Better Choices, Better Health program, consisting of a series of free, six-session workshops at 23 sites around Allegheny County this spring and summer.
As a former workshop participant who knows how it worked for her, the bubbly grandmother and great-grandmother is one of the biggest promoters of how the group interaction and support system of Better Choices, Better Health can encourage many others who feel weak.
"I was just living in fear and doubt of my own capabilities with my chronic diseases, and then as I took the program I got so much done in the six weeks, it just surprised me," she said. "I just soared."
More than 150 people 60 and older enrolled in the program locally last year, and plans call for educating over twice that many county residents with chronic diseases in 2011-12.
It's part of an effort launched a year ago by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which provided $27 million for programs around the country based on Stanford's Chronic Disease Self-Management Program.
Federal officials say two-thirds of Medicare spending is for beneficiaries with five or more chronic conditions. The Stanford program has shown that hospital utilization, doctors' visits and other health-care costs can be reduced if those individuals develop more knowledge of, confidence in and control over their health through the interactive workshops.
First Published April 18, 2011 12:00 am
