Ageing and Affordable Housing
Navigating growing challenges for seniors
Looking Ahead to the Dementia Journey
Reprinted from the Recovery: Living Your Bestish Life issue of Visions Journal, 2022, 17 (4), pp. 16-17
Where can older adults find help for mental health concerns?
Mental health concerns are a serious concern at any age, and everyone deserves help and support. If you’re concerned about your mental health, you can:
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Talk to your family doctor or go to a walk-in clinic
Now There Is Someone to Call On
Around 30% of seniors have no one to call on, whether they need help or just a simple conversation, and research shows that isolated seniors experience poorer mental and physical health than seniors with strong social connections. Allies in Aging is a partnership between agencies throughout Metro Vancouver to help connect people who are isolated with volunteers, service providers, and outreach initiatives. From simply inviting seniors together for a meal or successfully advocating for better transportation services, Allies in Aging helps seniors expand their social connections with dignity and confidence.
Vancouver’s Geriatric Crisis Service
A psychiatric geriatric emergency is an event with a psychiatric/behavioural component, involving an elderly individual, requiring a rapid response to ensure the safety of the individual and others, that can’t be managed initially in the current environment. The Geriatric Crisis Service exists to fill gaps in the emergency and crisis services to the psychogeriatric population through improved communication with the client and caregiver.
Listening to the North Okanagan
In 1999/2000 as part of a mental health system review conducted in what was then the North Okanagan Health Region (NOHR), CMHA BC Division completed a Regional Seniors’ Mental Health System Progress Report. Based on the information gathered, local Progress Report steering committees identified strengths of the regional seniors’ mental health system and areas for improvement.
Salmon Arm Mental Health Service Elderly Services Program
The development of community mental health services for adults over 64 years of age followed the implementation of services for the 19–64 age group. The elderly mental health service beacon was not switched on until the mid to late 1980s, when the Ministry of Health, Mental Health Division launched a program to address the specific mental health service requirements of this group. In Salmon Arm, our first exposure to the program was through educational workshops.
Helping the Forgotten Pioneers
Mental illness in old age has many different faces, and consequently many different ways of assisting these people have evolved. The Elderly Services Team has targeted help to seniors with severe behavioural problems and to the caregiver systems of these seniors.
The Upper Island Geriatric Outreach Team
The Upper Island Geriatric Outreach Program provides a multidisciplinary, comprehensive, individualized psychiatric consultation service for the residents and health care providers of North Vancouver Island.
