Whatever your age, building and maintaining social connections is important for your well-being, which includes managing frailty.
ABC’s award-winning documentary series, Old People’s Home For 4-Year-Olds, provides a great snapshot of the mental and physical benefits of regular mingling between the generations.
As one elderly participant on the show says, “before this, there was nothing good to look forward to, but now you wake up and think, ‘I’d better shower and get dressed and go to see what this next day’s going to bring’”.
TV shows such as this one have demonstrated the potential on-screen benefits of bringing together older adults and pre-schoolers. But a TV show isn’t the same as everyday life. Are there really benefits to bringing older and younger generations together?
Associate Professor Ruth Peters, Senior Researcher at Neuroscience Research Australia (NeuRA) and UNSW Science, is looking into just that. She was recently awarded a $3.7 million National Health and Medical Research Council grant to investigate and evaluate in community settings the potential for intergenerational practice to reduce frailty in older adults and improve school readiness in children.
“This significant grant funding will now enable us to provide the first robust empirical evidence of the impact community-based intergenerational practice programs have for young and old across Australia,” she said.
Understanding frailty
Frailty has been described as a “public health crisis for an ageing society”. It’s defined as a multidimensional syndrome characterised by a loss of reserves (physical ability, cognition, health) that results in vulnerability and often leads to increased care needs, early transition to aged care, morbidity and mortality.
An estimated 12 to 24 per cent of older adults are defined as frail, and a further 40 per cent are considered ‘prefrail’ or mildly frail.
“A way to think about frailty is that we understand that some people seem older than we expect, or older and frailer than others even at the same chronological age,” Dr Peters said. “This loss of resilience or having an increased vulnerability can be described as frailty.”
Frailty is associated with increased risks of poor health and of moving into residential care.
“Being frail is associated with five times the risk of transition to residential care and double the risk of hospitalisation,” Dr Peters said.
“Being older increases our chances of being frail, but frailty itself isn’t due to a specific health condition. Rather, it’s been described as a decline in reserves and/or function across multiple physiological systems.”
Intergenerational practice
Intergenerational practice programs are believed to have the potential to help maintain independent living, delay transition to aged care, reduce the requirement for healthcare resources, and strengthen our societies.
“Intergenerational programs have the potential to stabilise, reverse or slow frailty progression through a combination of increased physical activity, greater use of thinking skills like memory and planning, social contact, and improved mood in the older adults,” Dr Peters said.
“Our pilot studies have shown that it’s possible to deliver intergenerational programs in community settings and that the older adults and children who participate enjoy the programs and form friendships. This new study, the INTEGRITY trial, will allow us to measure the potential health benefits.”
INTEGRITY trial
The INTEGRITY (INTErGenerational Intervention to Reduce fraIlTY) trial is a world-first study bringing together older adults and preschool children in community settings for activities that target physical, cognitive and social engagement.
The four-year trial will involve researchers establishing up to 44 ‘clusters’ of about 10 local adults aged 65 and over and 10 local children aged three to five, to test a community-based and co-developed program designed to be generalisable, replicable and led by communities in preschools and within community spaces anywhere in Australia.
The study will combine multidisciplinary expertise in frailty, ageing, intergenerational practice, neurology, geriatric medicine, psychology and physiotherapy, and builds on pilot studies that illustrate the feasibility and potential for implementing intergenerational practice programs on a national scale at a relatively low cost.
If the results of the trial show that intergenerational practice programs can reduce frailty, the next step will be to develop evidence-based materials that communities can download and use to build their own local programs.
“The model we’re using is based in the community, with community-dwelling older adults and local preschools,” Dr Peters said. “It’s designed to be able to be translated to wider communities around Australia.”
While still in its early stages, the research will have important implications for people of all ages.
“Reducing frailty and helping older adults to remain independent are vital to the whole community,” Dr Peters said.
This feature was originally published in the August issue of Retail Pharmacy Assistant e-magazine.
