![\"photo](\"http:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/feb-27-health.27.1-Embracing-Aging_Simkin-Center\u2019s-therapeutic-recreation-manager-Cindy-Greenlay1.jpg\")
<\/a>According to Greenlay, people don\u2019t come to the Simkin Centre at the end of their lives to die \u2013 they come to continue living. Something about which the centre staff feel strongly is the importance of getting to know each of the residents individually. \u201cWe don\u2019t assume that everyone who is 75 likes to play Bingo,\u201d said Greenlay by way of example.<\/p>\n
The staff meet with each resident several times and gather as much information about what he\/she likes to do, so they can build activities to match. One of the most important things to understand, said Greenlay, is that residents have a lot of free time on their hands and the centre needs to fill that time with relevant programming.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe need to do that every single day \u2013 13 hours a day,\u201d she said. \u201cAs 80 percent of our population is cognitively impaired, so we have some people here who make those choices\u2026. We\u2019re all trained in specific areas to adapt to different disabilities\u2026. We have one recreation staff for every 40 residents. That person works five days a week to fill up this big piece of the pie.\u201d<\/p>\n
The centre\u2019s programming is funded by the local Jewish federation and private donors.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo brag a little bit, our facility is chosen every year by Red River College to bring the recreation students to,\u201d said Greenlay. \u201cThe students come here every fall to see what they want to be when they \u2018grow up.\u2019 They shadow our staff every fall to see what the programs are supposed to look like.\u201d<\/p>\n
Until a year ago, Simkin\u2019s spiritual health care was led by Rabbi Neal Rose, and it was based on a chaplaincy model. \u201cOnce Rabbi Rose retired, the board met and did some rethinking,\u201d said Barb Findlay, the centre\u2019s spiritual health care practitioner. \u201cThey researched what spiritual health could look like going forward. I think that in the whole world \u2013 and the Jewish world is not different \u2013 generally, people today are less religious and more spiritual. People use yoga and meditation and different ways to access the Divine. It\u2019s interesting, as I go around and meet new residents and introduce myself, I get one refrain that I hear all the time, \u2018Wait a minute. I\u2019m not too Jewish.\u2019 And, you know, actually, they are very Jewish.\u201d<\/p>\n Spiritual health has been recognized by the Canadian Medical Association and the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority (WRHA) as an integral part of the health profile, which includes physical and emotional health.<\/p>\n \u201cSpirituality is defined as that which gives meaning and purpose to life, besides the physical,\u201d explained Findlay. \u201cThe purpose of spiritual health is to symbolically walk beside people and to occupy that liminal space between what\u2019s known and what\u2019s not known in life.\u201d<\/p>\n Although the overwhelming majority of people at the Simkin Centre are Jewish, the centre operates as the Victoria Hospital emergency placement location. As such, the spiritual health personnel have to provide support for people from all religions, including Buddhists, Catholics, Evangelical Christians and First Nations.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat is important is their belief system and helping them to boost that and work with that for whatever needs they have,\u201d said Findlay. \u201cIsrael has embraced this new profession. They named it the \u2018livui ruchani<\/em>,\u2019 which is Hebrew for \u2018spiritual accompaniment.\u2019<\/p>\n \u201cThe Simkin population is roughly 200, and about 15 percent aren\u2019t Jewish,\u201d she continued. \u201cThe average age is 90, and about 85 percent of our people have some element of dementia. Ninety-six percent of elders live out their lives in the community with or without some supports, so, what we have here is a very small percentage of our elderly population \u2013 about four or five percent.\u201d<\/p>\n Dr. Harvey Chochinov, a geriatric psychiatrist in Winnipeg, has dedicated much of his work focus to end-of-life care, and has found that distress at the end of life is usually connected with people feeling as though they are a burden.<\/p>\n \u201cHe\u2019s developed a whole process which involves questioning and reflection, so we can help people review and rebuild, and hopefully move away from feeling they\u2019re a burden for their loved ones,\u201d said Findlay.<\/p>\n The evening\u2019s talk ended off on a lively and light note, with Cindy Bass, the centre\u2019s music therapist demonstrating how she engages residents. \u201cMusic memory is one of the last remaining faculties for the elderly population with Alzheimer\u2019s disease,\u201d said Bass. \u201cFor example, if you take a song like \u2018My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean,\u2019 everybody knows it. And it\u2019s been shown that some people who can\u2019t speak anymore can still sing, which is also why it works well as therapy for stroke victims, helping them relearn to speak.\u201d<\/p>\n Music can increase attention span and be very useful for the cognitively impaired, she added, as it opens new brain pathways, evidence of which has been seen using MRIs.<\/p>\n Bass led the crowd in a few songs to illustrate the power of music and she explained the many benefits gained through music, including the building of community ties and increased socialization, as well as its use in prayer and to enhance self-expression.<\/p>\n \u201cMusic,\u201d she said, \u201cprovides people of all ages, regardless of disability, with ample opportunity for meaningful responses to all aspects of our environment.\u201d<\/p>\n Rebeca Kuropatwa<\/strong> is a Winnipeg freelance writer.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Cindy Greenlay, therapeutic recreation manager at Winnipeg\u2019s Simkin Centre, is one of the first to admit that no one plans to retire and move into a care home. But, she explained, \u201cCircumstances happen and the support we\u2019re able to provide here is something needed in the community.\u201d On Feb. 18, the women\u2019s philanthropy of Combined […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[3273,3270,3271,3269,3225,3272,3268],"class_list":["post-10937","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-national","tag-barb-findlay","tag-cindy-greenlay","tag-daniela-jacobson","tag-elderly","tag-health-care","tag-jewish-federation-of-winnipeg","tag-simkin-centre"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":8}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10937","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10937"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10937\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10937"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10937"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10937"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/a>