ATHABASCA – The Athabasca Seniors Centre was filled to the brim June 8 for the annual Family and Community Support Services (FCSS) Seniors’ Symposium.
The event, which is held alongside a sister show in Boyle during Senior’s Week each year, saw 74 community members take part in a day that was focused around providing them the information that they need to age gracefully in their own homes.
“I’m happy with the response that we got from both Boyle and Athabasca,” said Kim Lewis, who organizes the symposiums in her role as the seniors’ advocate at FCSS. “It gives me great joy to see people laughing and getting the information that they need. It was a lot of fun.”
The Athabasca event drew in 74 people, with a further 35 attending the Boyle edition. While Lewis tries to keep the events as similar as possible, there were a few slight differences in the presentations.
“We had a couple of presentations that were coming from outside of the community that were only able to make it to one of the two days, so there some slight differences. The RCMP presentation was given by Sgt. (Dennis) Properzi in Boyle, and we had the constable (David McLenaghan) do it here in Athabasca,” said Lewis.
Most of the information presented was about how seniors could take care of themselves, make sure that they’re safe, and able to stay in their own homes for as long as possible. At the Athabasca event, the first speaker was McLenaghan, who talked about different scams that he had seen or heard about in his role with the RCMP. There were also presentations on yoga, diet, and exercise given by specialists in the area.
“A lot of seniors don’t want to leave their homes if at all possible, so it’s about how do we stay healthy longer so that we can stay where we want,” said Lewis when asked about the importance of physical health. “It’s also about what supports do seniors need to be able to stay and age in place.”
Aging in place isn’t just an issue in Athabasca; there’s a province-wide shortage of facilities for seniors as advances in healthcare mean that people are living for longer with each passing year and the birth rate drops.
“This is something that we’re going to have to look at as a country,” said Lewis. “We need to find more ways that older adults can remain in their homes, with the proper supports. We have more people turning 65 each year, and we’re coming to this bubble where we are seeing more people retiring and living longer.”
Lewis wasn’t the only person happy with how the event went; the 74 seniors at the Athabasca event seemed to be very engaged, with some even taking notes during the presentations.
“Getting information about the scams and that sort of stuff makes people realize that there are some people out there that are looking to harm me, and what they can do about it,” said Jean Langley, who was attending the event for the first time.
“It’s a totally different group of people that are giving talks today,” added Donna Legge, who had been at the symposium the year before. “They’ve done a really good job of picking areas of interest for seniors, things that you can live in the community for years and still not know all these things that are going on. It really does serve a good purpose to keep us informed, and how to access new information.”
