GEROFIT STUDENT VOLUNTEERS: INTERGENERATIONAL APPROACH TO MOBILITY

Abstract

Abstract The Institute of Medicine (IOM) has reported that innovative models of care will need to be used to increase the workforce to care for an aging population and to encourage older adults “to be active partners in their own care” (IOM, 2008). Use of student volunteers in an intergenerational approach could be used to supplement the workforce to motivate older adults for self-care in clinical practice. Gerofit@UCLA is a student organization created to support Gerofit at the Greater Los Angeles VA. These students completed an Expectation Regarding Aging (ERA-12) Survey. ERA-12 is a 12-item survey that measures expectations regarding aging in physical health, mental health and cognitive function with scores ranging from 0-100, higher scores indicating higher expectations with aging. After volunteering in Gerofit, students indicated highest expectations for mental health (78.33 ± 5.9) compared to cognitive health (53.34 ± 5.3) and physical health (39.17 ± 3.7). Although these students recognize the physical changes with aging of this 80-102 year old group, they appreciate that group physical activity in a program like Gerofit has positive effects on mental health and cognition, for the patients and for themselves.