Senior Wellness Research Helps Island's Citizens

by David Phillips
(Anglesey)

Bangor University has shared three years of research into wellness for older people at a special conference on Anglesey.

An innovative project between the university and local authority, the Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP), seeks to identify and develop better ways of offering wellness enhancing activities for mature adults on the island.

This ambitious programme has seen close collaboration between Bangor University's School of Sport, Health and Exercise Sciences and the Anglesey Strategy for Older People team.

A special one day Learning Exchange conference held at the Bulkeley Hotel, Beaumaris, was opened by Albert Owen MP. Among the initiatives presented were:

• how a number of community-based interventions and training of service providers has been implemented and evaluated




• creating three Community AgeWell centres on the island in collaboration with Age Concern and funded by a £495,384 Big Lottery grant




• further development of strategies for checking how services are provided

Age Well provides a convenient location for senior citizens on the island to access a range of health services and the opportunity to lern more about healthy living activities.

The partnership between Bangor University and the County Council was particularly keen to explore ways of reducing the barriers to services often faced by older people, and sees these innovative interventions as a way of mitigating the problem..

Anglesey's Older People Strategy Co-ordinator, Brian Jones, said those attending the conference could "visit one of the Island’s AgeWell Centres, and learn about how they have developed" and then use that experience to seek clarification in a question and answer session with the KTP panel.

Dr David Markland, from Bangor University's School of Sport, Health and Exercise Sciences, said "We have achieved a great deal over the past three years, most notably the creation of three AgeWell centres on Anglesey, ...an important 'one-stop-shop' offering activities, health services and advice to older people in the community.”

Dr Markland hopes the benefits of the research findings can be shared more widely in other health related fields and also that elderly people across many other communities in Wales and indeed the UK can benefit from these findings.

Photos by Paul Mattock


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