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Show Gopo Oitii Pain By ROSELYN KIRK BOUNTIFUL - Coping with pain is the first in a series of seminars that will be conducted through the cooperation of the Davis County Council on Aging and the department of Family and Community Mental Health. WILDA Nightingale, psychiatric nurse, and Kerry Davis, psychiatric social worker, said the seminar was requested by the aging council coun-cil who listed nine problems that have been identified for those over 60 which can be dealt with through group and individual therapy. Mr. Davis, mental health representative to the council on aging, said programs in the past have tended to focus on craft oriented functions. The council has felt the need to expand services at the aging ag-ing center and provide more than a place to get together. SINCE HEALTH is important impor-tant to people of this age, the centers have hoped to capitalize capi-talize on this interest by moving into the mental health area to explore problems. In order for senior citizens to develop trust, the two mental health therapists decided to begin the series with "Coping with Pain" seminar, which they say is a "more neutral area" in exploring mental health problems. Six people attended the first seminar at the Heritage Center in Clearfield and 16 at the Bountiful Golden Years Center. The pain and chronic illness seminar is expected to last four or five weeks before the group will move into other . identified problem areas such as coping with retirement, marital conflicts, learning to live alone and handling grief, death and dying. OTHER AREAS that have been identified as problems that must be resolved through therapy are depression, family adjustment to the elderly, el-derly, nursing home placement, loss of driver's license, change in personality, per-sonality, diet, acceptance of serious illness and behavior modification. The first session of the chronic pain seminar consisted consist-ed of a movie which identified ways of coping with pain. The information giving sessions are followed by group therapy sessions. Ms. Nightingale said, "The idea that people can talk about their problems with each other helps to resolve thosu problems." THE NEXT two sessions ' will be taught by Dr. Heber Kimball, mental health clinical psychologist, who will conduct sessions on relaxation relaxa-tion and bio-feedback. Ms. Nightingale said she hopes to have an expert on arthritic pain speak during one of the sessions. Group participants during the first session suggested this as a -discussion topic, Ms. Nightingale Night-ingale said. The therapists hope to leave some sessions open-ended so the participants par-ticipants can suggest topics. THE CONCEPT of teaching people to deal with chronic pain is being experimented with at chronic pain clinics at the University of Utah and the McKay-Dee Hospital in Og-den. Og-den. Prior to accepting the position with the Davis County mental health, Ms. Nightingale was a nurse at the pain center in Salt Lake City. Mr. Davis, as a liaison between mental health and the council on aging, said the list of problems facing older people has been identified by that council as a jumping-off point for seminar sessions. THERE ARE approximately approxi-mately 9,030 people over 60 in Davis County. Mrs. Alice Johnson, director of the Council on Aging, has requested that a mental health worker be available at both the Bountiful Golden Years Center and the Clearfield Clear-field Heritage Center on a regular basis. About 1,000 people are served in each of these two centers. Mr. Davis said the sessions will help mental health to "tap into the problems of senior citizens." Mental Health workers say other sessions ses-sions will follow the pain seminar with seminars geared around the nucleus of people attracted. As clients become more comfortable with the concept of improving mental health, many prejudices will be broken down, he said. Both anticipates an-ticipates that many of the seminars will be repeated if the demand expands. |
