POGOe: Healthy Ager Life History Project

Abstract

Abstract This resource trains students how to gather a life history from a “healthy ager,” someone who is defined as being over the age of 60. Students are trained in class and then meet with an assigned older adult to conduct the life history. Students next prepare a three- to five-page paper recounting the life history and describing the impact of the experience on their view of aging. Papers are graded, and students present their experiences in small-group settings. At the author's school, this occurs in the early clinical experience course for first- and second-year medical students with trained faculty facilitators. Data show that this experience breaks stereotypes of aging and impacts student attitudes about care of older adults. This material also helps students understand the experience of aging and related cultural dimensions of aging. Use of careful community contacts to identify healthy agers, letters of introduction to introduce healthy agers to students, and scoring tools for qualitative analysis of student reports is suggested. Students should be advised to write thank-you letters to the patients afterward. Small-group debriefing is important so that stereotypes can be examined in the context of actual experience.

Keywords

• Home Visit
• POGOe
• Healthy Aging
• House Calls
• Growth & Development
• Elder