Aging Gracefully: Informed Choices for Health, Wellness, and Well-Being

Course overview

The human body reflects intelligent design capable of continual adaptation as we interact with our environment, from our first breath to our last. While our genetics and nutrition greatly influence our health status over our lifespan, our responses to life events and relationships, along with our health behaviors and capacity for resiliency, also determine our potential to age gracefully. This course will provide the rehabilitation medicine professional with an integrative and interprofessional perspective, inspiring collaboration with older adult patients in generating states of well-being associated with optimal aging. Our therapeutic relationship is strengthened when clinicians understand patient attitudes toward their aging process, which includes recognizing their beliefs (and our own) about what is and is not inevitable as we age.