Exercise and Immunity

6/29/11
This week, my class was on exercise and immunity. It was definitely the most fun class we've had so far! Instead of a powerpoint, I made a handout with directions for a variety of calisthenic exercises. For the first 20 minutes, I taught them about the benefits of exercise and the different ways exercise can boost immunity. After the lecture portion of class, we  moved on to the exercise portion. I passed out bottled water for everyone. I also brought a CD that I made with upbeat and fast paced, popular music. I made sure the first few songs were a little slower for us to stretch to. Everyone was really hesitant to participate, but once I started the music they definitely loosened up a bit. I asked anyone who could to join me on the floor, and for everyone else to grab a chair and stretch from there. Their social worker normally does an exercise group with them once or twice a week, and she joined us for this part of the class. Most of the exercises that I put on their list were things they could do sitting in a chair, with something simple such as a water bottle or coffee mug to assist with a few of them. I had hoped with the dance music on the CD, that they would want to dance, but I didn't want to make anyone uncomfortable so I thought I'd just let the CD play and see what happened. Well, as we were transitioning from stretching on the floor to getting our chairs ready for the calisthenics, Fergie started to play. Almost everyone just started dancing! It was so much fun. The front desk workers came around and danced with us and the social worker! Half way through the song, the nurse walks in and stares wide eyed at all of us getting down and literally ran to join us! After 3 songs of all of us dancing our hearts out and chanting each other on, we were all out of breath and moved on to the other exercises. We went through the list on the hand out, and everyone was seemed really intrigued at how much of a work out we were getting event though we were sitting in a chair!  After we got done, I passed out granola bars. I feel that this class was a huge success. I hope that I made it fun enough so they will want to exercise on their own more often. I made sure to leave them the CD I made, and I told their social worker that I would make more for them to use during their weekly exercise group. I asked about the evaluations, and they hadn't finished them yet. They are planning on doing that this week.


My resources this week were:

Daumit, G., Goldberg, R., Anthony, C., Dickerson, F., Brown, C., Kreyenbuhl, J., & ... Dixon, L. (2005). Physical activity patterns in adults with severe mental illness. Journal of Nervous & Mental Disease, 193(10), 641-646.

and

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/007165.htm

Choose My Plate, Nutrition, Food Labels, & Cholesterol

June 28, 2011

This week class was called Good Eats! We talked about Choose My Plate, food labels, and cholesterol. Again, this class was incredibly difficult to squeeze into 50 minutes. I really wanted to have fun with this class so I brought snacks! I took apple slices, yogurt, peanut butter, and ants on a log (celery with peanut butter and raisins).  Thanks to Heather and Jacquie for the great ideas! These healthy snacks weren’t as big of a hit as I’d hoped.  I asked them what they usually liked to snack on and I got answers like fried chicken and Little Debbie Snacks.  In fact, I was asked if I could bring fried chicken next week!  I used a powerpoint to guide our lecture. After we talked about Choose My Plate, I taught them the basic concepts of label reading. Beth Kitchin is the Nutrition instructor for UAB School of Nursing, and she let me borrow lots of props for class this week. She gave me snack boxes, microwave dinner boxes, juices, soups, and a coke bottle with just sugar in it (great visual to show you just how much sugar you are getting in the 16 oz bottle). I made sure everyone had an example of a food label to hold and read as we talked about them. I brought 5 extra boxes of raisins. I told them that whoever could answer my questions at the end of class correctly would win a box of raisins. This really sparked their attention! One of my students who had been answering all my questions with the word “peaches” and plucking invisible things out of the air told me exactly how many mg of sodium was in the can of soup she was holding, and the daily value percentage. Like Dr. Mc Guinness said, “Perception is an fascinating phenomenon!”  After label reading, we talked about what cholesterol was, and the difference between good and bad cholesterol. This week I got hugs. It was great! I really love my class! 

I won’t be having class next week. The Jasper House nurse will be having a group with them. I’m going to give her some evaluation questions to see what they are learning and what they think of the class so far.  I want to go ahead and evaluate, so that if there is anything I can improve on or make easier for them I can do it now. I’ve got 4 classes left, and I want them to be awesome!

Prevention and Maintenance of Hypertension and Diabetes & Stroke Prevention

June 8, 2011
This week class was called Prevention and Maintenance of Hypertension and Diabetes & Stroke Prevention. I only have 7 classes, so they are very condensed.  After planning for this class, I never thought I was going to be able to fit everything in 50 minutes. I cut it down to the very basics and made handouts. I went to the National Stroke Association website stroke.org and printed out copies of their Stroke 101 Fact Sheet. I also made my own pamphlet for them. I called it “Just a Few Bites on Blood Pressure, Diabetes, and Stroke.”  I decided on its name because everything we were going to be talking about had a lot to do with healthy eating and lifestyle modification. I also used information from the Mayo Clinic and The National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute.  I made a power point to use in class too.  This class had some difficult information, but I tried to make sure we covered all the basic concepts. My main concern was making sure that the information was relevant to their situation.

Class outline

·         Blood Pressure

o    What is high blood pressure?

o    How do you find out if you have it?

o    Checking your blood pressure

o    Prevention

o    Treatment

·         Stroke

o    What is a stroke?

o    Overview of types and causes

o    Signs of a stroke

o    Stroke Prevention

o    Recovery

·         Diabetes

o    What is DM?

o    Types

o    Risk factors

o    Prevention

Oral Hygiene & Foot Care

June 1, 2011
My first class was on foot care and oral hygiene.  It was called, "Don't Put Your Foot in Your Mouth!" This class was fun to prepare for! All of the dentists who donated were so generous.  I made goodie bags for each student that included: 1 toothbrush, 4 individually packed floss picks, toothpaste, 1 revealing tablet, and 2 nail files. Everyone was extremely grateful for their bag and seemed excited about their new stuff! 

Class Outline for Foot Care and Oral Hygiene:

·         Foot Care

o   Why it’s important to take care of your feet

o   Proper cleaning and drying of your feet

o   Moisturizing your feet

o   Socks and shoes

o   Proper toenail cutting technique and when to let your doctor take care of it

o   Inspecting your feet, having your doctor inspect your feet

o   Diabetes and foot care

o   Common Complication: hard skin, bunions, fungal infections, hammer toes, and corns

·         Oral Hygiene

o   What is good oral hygiene and why is it important?

o   Daily mouth care

o   Proper brushing and flossing techniques

o   Inspecting your gums

o   Dry Mouth

o   Denture Care

o   Common Complications: bleeding gums, white tongue, cracked teeth, cold sore, fizzy drinks and sour foods, bad breath, cracking in corners of mouth, chapped lips

Meet & Greet

May 25, 2011

I went to Jasper House today and met my new students. I introduced myself, and told them about the health education classes I would be teaching for the next several weeks. Everyone seemed really excited and already had questions! I knew it was going to be a great class! I met with their nurse afterwards and gave her an outline of my class.  Next week, I’ll be teaching about foot care and oral hygiene. I have been calling dentists offices and getting them to donate toothbrushes and toothpaste so I could make goodie bags for my first class. I also went shopping and bought some travel individually packaged floss picks.  

Honors in Nursing with AIDS Alabama: Introduction

My name is Staci Kaiser. I attend the University of Alabama at Birmingham School of Nursing. I am in the Honors in Nursing Program. This program has three main goals for their students: engage in purposeful civic learning, enhance academic learning, and to provide meaningful community service. Each student finds a community organization that they are interested in working with. Together they find and work towards meeting a need that organization has. This becomes the student's service learning project. Each student makes a blog to share what they have accomplished with their community partner.

My community partner is AIDS Alabama. I have been volunteering since January of 2010 with their Living in Balance Chemical Addiction Program. When I was asked to be in the Honors program, I was really excited to ask AIDS Alabama to be my community partner for my service learning project (SLP). Their main goal is safe housing for their consumers. The housing facility for their mentally ill clients is called Jasper House. There is 14 units in this facility, and it stays full. They have a great 24-hour staff and one nurse. She is my community partner supervisor. We worked together to come up with a fabulous SLP!

They really desired to start a health education class for their clients at Jasper House, but did not have the necessary resources to make this happen. So I became the extra pair of hands they wished they had. We agreed that one day a week for seven weeks I would teach a one hour class.  I created a course outline. The topics for the classes are: (1) foot care and oral hygiene; (2) preventing stroke, hypertension, and diabetes; (3)nutrition and cholesterol: boosting immunity and preventing cognitive decline; (4) exercise; (5) risks of smoking and the benefits of humor/improving mood; (6) improving memory; (7) men and women’s health maintenance.  



These are my goals and objectives:

Goal 1: Enhance academic learning.

Objectives:

Review of literature of each class topic and of HIV and mental illness. The student will learn about health education and promotion techniques.

Goal 2: Engage in purposeful civic learning.

Objectives:

Understand the needs of patients with HIV and mental illness in the community. Understand how nursing and public health can enhance and empower the patient population.

Goal 3: Provide meaningful community service.

Objectives:

The student will plan and lead 7 health education sessions at Jasper House.