Dr. David Vance has been a major inspiration to me. His articles were a large part of my literature review and academic learning for my project. Dr. Vance is an expert on memory and aging and he has done three studies with adults aging with HIV. People with HIV have a decline in brain volume and cognition. Because the consumers at Jasper House have HIV and mental illness, I believed that it was most important to have every general health education topic be related to improving mental health as well. I had made a list of the classes I was going to teach when I met with Dr. Vance. I told him about my service learning project, and explained that I had very limited resources. I asked him what specifically I could do with the consumers, or teach them that could help them exercise and improve their memory. We discussed the different mnemonic devices, but I was interested in a bigger concept than the techniques such as chucking, method of loci, and the spaced retrieval method. He handed me one of his newer articles Cognitive Prescriptions: A Nursing Approach to Increasing Cognitive Reserve. This article was EXACTLY what I was looking for. It was amazing! The "cognitive prescription" included physical exercise, intellectual exercise, nutrition, sleep hygiene, social interaction, and mood and emotional state, which were several of the topics of our classes. It was fabulous to be able to use this article to help plan my classes and to sum up my service learning project with the "Improving Memory" class. I created a literature review to be sure all of my classes were very evidenced based, but being able to have most of the class subjects be a part of the "cognitive prescription" made me feel like I was able to really achieve maximum health promotion specifically relevant to their needs.
I don't know if I can say this was the best, or even my favorite class, but at the end of it I felt so accomplished. I was able to purposefully connect all of our classes so far, and review on almost every topic by letting the consumers discuss them. I just felt this was the perfect climactic end to the health education classes I was teaching.
Improving Memory- Class Outline
-This week I prepared a handout instead of a powerpoint, because this class was very much taught through guided discussion.- Ask the consumers to define cognition
- Discuss what they thought successful aging was
- Discuss and/or review primarily through open discussion the following topics and how they can be positive or negative factors on mental health:
- Physical exercise
- Intellectual exercise
- Nutrition
- Sleep hygiene
- Substance abuse
- Social interaction
- Mood and emotional state
Next week, I will not be teaching the class. I plan to throw a party of sorts during their lunch time to show them how much I have enjoyed and appreciated spending time with them. After lunch, during normal class time, two of my UAB nursing student cohorts will be teaching the last class of my service learning project. We will split the 7 women and 7 men up into groups to have a Men and Women's Health class. Lauren Lanehart, who is a fellow Honors in Nursing Student, women's health extraordinaire, and lovely friend, will be teaching the women. You can see her blog, Healthy Women Living with HIV at http://healthwithhiv.blogspot.com/. Adam Turman is one of my favorite study buddies, a great friend, and was in my med-surge clinical group. He has a really special gift of forming fast bonds with people he meets, and he is fabulous at summarizing difficult information and presenting it in an interesting and understandable way. Adam will be teaching the men's class.
Resource:
Vance, D. E., Eagerton, G., Harnish, B., McKie, P., & Fazeli, P. L. (2011). CNE ARTICLE. Cognitive Prescriptions A Nursing Approach to Increasing Cognitive Reserve. Journal of Gerontological Nursing, 37(4), 22-31. doi:10.3928/00989134-20101202-03
