Living longer, healthier, happier
Office of Engagement and Extension prioritizes healthy aging programs to meet changing demographic needs
story by Jayme DeLoss
published Feb. 1, 2024
After taking the Colorado State University Aging Mastery Program, Sharon Stoeber rolled up her rugs and put them away to avoid trips and slips. She started exercising with bands distributed in class and watching her salt intake.
Stoeber will be 80 in March, but she’s always willing to learn new things, she said.
“I’m not beyond learning, and anything that’ll help me to be a better person, better citizen and to help others, I’m willing.”
Stoeber was among the first students to take the Office of Engagement and Extension’s Aging Mastery Program in the San Luis Valley. She said the information shared in the class was helpful and called the instructor, Janae Naranjo, “absolutely amazing.”
Naranjo, an Extension family and consumer science master instructor, brings programming to the Tri-County Senior Citizens and Housing center in Monte Vista and other senior living facilities in the San Luis Valley to make it easy for residents to attend.
“She had people come in and teach us how to get up if we did fall on the floor,” Stoeber said. “I think it’s an amazing program, and I hope they keep it going.”
Aging Mastery is a 10-course series covering prevention, nutrition, exercise, medication management, advance directives, succession planning and community engagement. It is one of 10 Engagement and Extension programs designed to help older adults live healthier, happier and longer lives.
But it’s not a one-way street. The participants have so much to offer, Naranjo said.
“Watching the participants come every week, laugh, learn, ask questions, and connect with each other and the guest speakers is very rewarding,” she said. “I feel grateful and humbled that I get to do this as a career. In each class, I learn from them. If we are willing to listen, our elders have so much to teach us.”
Listening to Colorado communities
Because Colorado’s population is shifting, Engagement and Extension has prioritized healthy aging in recent years, with more programs in the works and an infusion of funding from the Colorado State University System Board of Governors through the Rural Initiative.
“We know that the demographics are moving toward an older population, especially in our rural communities,” said Sue Schneider, state health specialist with the Office of Engagement and Extension. “We need to make sure we’re responding, providing resources and engaging older adults in the work that we’re doing.”
Engagement and Extension is the outreach arm of CSU, Colorado’s land-grant university, tasked with responding to community needs using university resources. The office recently reorganized its program and research units to make health and well-being a focus area and to combine health programming already provided by family and consumer science Extension staff under one umbrella.
Ginger Williams’ position as a rural health specialist for the eastern region is part of CSU’s expanded investment in healthy aging.
“There are older adults who want to age in place, so we are focused on how to help our communities help older adults to age successfully,” Williams said.
Williams, who lives in Wray, said every community has different needs, and Engagement and Extension is asking what those needs are and trying to provide the right resources in the right way.
CSU has adapted the Aging Mastery curriculum, developed by the National Council on Aging, to meet the needs of individual communities and address health equity issues.
The Aging Mastery Program was first offered in Spanish in Sterling and was so successful that the graduates formed an alumni group that continues to meet regularly and address community issues. The program is now offered in five more languages to serve immigrants and refugees in Aurora through a partnership with the Area Agency on Aging at the Denver Regional Council of Governments.
CSU also worked with members of the Ute Mountain Ute tribe in southwest Colorado to tailor the Aging Mastery Program to the tribe’s cultural values and needs.
“The Aging Mastery Program with the Ute Mountain Ute tribe was a great opportunity to provide intentional engagement of Extension programs with a traditionally underrepresented community,” said Greg Felsen, a CSU Extension accessible education specialist who co-led the project with Ute Mountain Ute tribal member and CSU AmeriCorps Vista member Arleen Colorow. “AMP classes allowed elder tribal members education on important topics to their lives. It has led to engaged participation in their community and awareness of all the programs CSU Extension offers in the region.”
Rural needs
Rural communities face some challenges that urban areas may not have. Access to health services can be limited; specialists might be too far away; and lack of transportation or cost may prevent rural residents from seeing a doctor.
“Out-of-the-box thinking is how we’re going to address these big, hairy issues around health,” Williams said.
Williams is piloting a “social prescribing” program in Logan County to directly link physicians with community-based organizations that can help overcome some of these issues.
“Instead of handing somebody referral paperwork, and they’re overwhelmed in an appointment and they’re probably going to throw it away, they’re going to get a warm handoff to somebody else who’s going to provide that supportive care to help them get connected to those organizations,” Williams said.
A patient newly diagnosed with diabetes could be introduced to Extension’s Dining with Diabetes classes, or a patient struggling with loneliness and depression could be connected with a social support group. Isolation can lead to serious health problems and increased risk of dementia, and social connections are key to living well, Williams said.
Making connections
Caring for a loved one with dementia, Alzheimer’s or a physical impairment is stressful, and caregivers need care too. Engagement and Extension hosted a free caregiver workshop series in the fall, one of several offerings to support caregivers – a demographic that is also expanding as the population ages.
The sessions were presented online, and Extension offices organized viewing parties to bring caregivers together for conversation and social connection.
The webinar watch parties inspired a partnership with the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute to offer virtual classes in areas of the state that didn’t previously have access to the curriculum, which is geared toward those 50 and older and covers a wide range of subjects. Extension facilitators hosted viewing parties at Extension offices, senior centers, libraries, a hospital, a museum and the Northeastern Junior College Yuma campus.
Studies show that learning new things can help people stay sharp as they age.
As for lifelong learner Stoeber, she plans to take upcoming OLLI classes through Extension on food, health and wellness, and building resilience at the Tri-County Senior Citizens and Housing center.
“You bet, I’ll be there,” Stoeber said.
Healthy Aging
As a land-grant institution, Colorado State University is dedicated to serving as a catalyst for interdisciplinary research and community outreach, so that people can live the healthiest and most productive lives possible. This special report from SOURCE explores the work happening at CSU and provides insights into active aging.
