WS Chronicle

By Deb Burcombe

Wake Forest University School of Medicine is home to the Sticht Center for Healthy Aging and Alzheimer’s Prevention. The Sticht Center is home to two Centers of Excellence that are supported by the National Institutes of Health. What many people don’t know is the scope of resources that are available to older adults right here in Winston-Salem – and most at no cost to them!

So, what does this mean to our community’s older adults and those who love them? 

It means that at the Sticht Center, our mission is to create an environment where dedicated professionals work together to discover ways to achieve and to maintain both body and brain health for older adults.

Our goal is to support older adults so that they can:

*live safely and independently;

*remain engaged and productive; and 

*enjoy the highest quality of life possible – on THEIR terms!

But here was our challenge: How can we get this valuable information to the people who could benefit the most?

To address this challenge, the AgingWell Series was launched six years ago with the single goal of providing meaningful and timely information on ways that we can all live well and age well and would be presented in a way that could be easily understood by the general public and be provided at no cost. It was an immediate success!

For the first two years, AgingWell was an in-person, monthly event that was held in the main library in downtown Winston-Salem and enjoyed a loyal following of more than 100 attendees. But AgingWell was much more than simply a monthly seminar – it was a fun and social event that fostered new friendships and provided a way for our community’s older adults to stay connected and engaged while learning from the area’s top experts on steps they could take to achieve and maintain a healthy lifestyle. And we enjoyed presenting the event as much as those who attended it!

Then COVID hit.

After realizing that COVID would last longer than the few weeks that had originally been projected, the AgingWell team came together to brainstorm the best way to revamp AgingWell to create a virtual version, realizing that an important aspect of AgingWell had always been the fun and entertaining elements. Remembering back to the earliest days of COVID when restaurants were closed and older adults were strongly advised to stay in their homes, we thought: what could we do that could not only benefit the AgingWell participants, but possibly help the community as a whole?

After thoughtful consideration, Virtual AgingWell was launched in August of 2020. The virtual version keeps the same one-hour format and is still held on the second Tuesday of every month from 5:30-6:30 p.m. and contains the valuable educational component. But now in addition to the 30-minute educational session, it also has two 15-minute feature segments: EatingWell and LivingWell. 

The EatingWell segment features local chefs from area restaurants who provide a recipe and cooking demonstration of one of their signature dishes. This was especially beneficial to local restaurants during the height of COVID since they were able to let viewers know that they were still open for pick-up or delivery – critical to help ensure these businesses could weather the storm and hopefully still be in business when the pandemic was over. Viewers loved watching a chef prepare a recipe step by step so that they could make the same delicious dish at home. And they liked “meeting” the chefs at local restaurants where they may have dined but didn’t have an opportunity to get to know them. It is definitely a win-win all the way around!

The other pre-recorded segment is LivingWell. This segment features either exercise activities that viewers could do from the safety of their homes, or virtual road trips to points of interest throughout the area. Again, during the first months of COVID when older adults were staying close to home, these LivingWell segments provided a much-needed outlet for viewers to explore new destinations, if sometimes only virtually. From a visit with potters in Seagrove to a virtual tour of the holiday lights in McAdenville, “the Christmas City,” viewers experienced a variety of places that they otherwise may not have known about.

And as we say here in the South, when life gives you lemons, you make lemon meringue pie. What was originally a challenge became an asset as moving the AgingWell to a virtual format has viewers from around the world – England, Ireland, Germany, and Canada, as well as the U.S. The use of technology has allowed for a greater number of people to learn about the many things we can all do to live well and age well. 

With nearly 800 followers throughout the world, it’s clear to see that people are eager to learn how to age well through the AgingWell Series!  

Deb Burcombe is the program director of outreach for Sticht Center for Healthy Aging and Alzheimer’s Prevention. For more information, please visit: https://wakehealth.edu/agingwellseries.