Meaningful Activities: Podcast with Anna Oh and Theresa Allison

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GeriPal - A Geriatrics and Palliative Medicine Podcast 42 min 4 speakers 8 chapters transcribed 7 hours ago

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What is the purpose of this episode and who are the featured guests?

Anna Oh 0:01

The JerryPow podcast is brought to you by Artstone Foundation, improving the health and well-being of older Californians and their caregivers.

Eric Widera 0:10

Welcome to the Jerry Powell podcast. This is Eric Badera. This is Alex Smith. And Alex, I see a full house.

Alex Smith 0:16

We got a full house today, Eric. Today we're delighted to welcome to the Jerry Powell podcast, Anna O, who is a nurse researcher at UCSF and she is in a VA quality scholars program based at the San Francisco VA. Welcome to the Jerry Powell podcast, Anna.

Anna Oh 0:33

Thank you for having me.

Alex Smith 0:35

And we're delighted to welcome Teresa Allison, who is a professor of medicine. She's a geriatrician and she is uh very interested in meaningful activities, the studies of the subject of today's podcast, and she's an ethnomusicologist, a PhD ethnomedicol musicologist, in addition to being a researcher. Welcome to the Jerry Powell podcast. I shouldn't say in addition to being research. I mean in addition to being a physician. And we have Ken Kavinsky, who everybody knows. Uh Ken is a professor of medicine in the UCSF Division of Geriatrics and researcher and Cubs fan. Welcome back, Ken. Good to be here. Sorry about those Cubs.

Eric Widera 1:15

Mostly Cubs fan. Anyways, we're gonna be talking about meaningful activities and dementia. But before we do, we always ask for a song request. Who has a song request for Alex? Teresa, I think it's you.

Theresa Allison 1:28

Anna. Do you want me to tell the story for you or you want to say it yourself?

Anna Oh 1:32

Oh, so we were request we were asked uh for our song request and since this topic that we're going to be talking about today is about meaningful activities, uh I actually had thought that I know that uh playing the guitar is a meaningful activity for Alex. So I suggested that he uh Pick the song for our podcast today. And then in our conversations, Teresa.

Theresa Allison 2:00

It just went on and on and Alex and I have been kicking around the idea of trying to play a Bossa Nova piece on flute and guitar. I'm too chicken to play flute here. But we chose girl from Ipanema and Alex will help us out without me.

Alex Smith 2:14

Yep. So on the podcast you'll hear Teresa and I playing together and for those of you watching on YouTube, here's a little bit of it with me singing.

3:00

Right.

Eric Widera 3:02

Bravo, Alex. I'm looking forward to the the flute addition to that too. Anna, you brought up the word or the phrase meaningful activities. What is that? I haven't heard that before.

Anna Oh 3:16

So um in the paper that uh we wrote, uh we specifically defined meaningful activities as uh self-reported participation in a favorite activity um that includes in like enhanced cognitive engagement, so like reading. uh social connectedness, socializing with others, or a physical aptitude like walking or jogging. But the simple answer is kind of what is your favorite activity and how is that meaningful to you?

Eric Widera 3:46

So Alex playing the guitar counts. Uh Teresa, do you want to add anything else to the definition for meaningful activities?

Theresa Allison 3:56

Well, Anna hits on something interesting, which is this slippage between favorite activities and meaningful activities. Uh for example, if I watch a Cubs game, it is not a meaningful activity for me. I think Ken feels somewhat differently on that matter. Um And so I think it's important to realize that when we query people about their meaningful activities. We really need to watch and see what they're doing. Um, to know how much this is something that's just fun or something that's soul fulfilled.

Eric Widera 4:29

So there there's a potential difference between things that we may enjoy and things that bring us fulfillment?

Theresa Allison 4:37

I I would say it's um it's a range. Some things are lighter for us and other things are more essential to who we are. And all of them get encompassed in this category of meaningful activities.

Eric Widera 4:49

And Anna, how did how did you get interested in this as a subject to do research on? Cause you just published a paper in Jam IM, a research letter. Is is this like a am I just have I just missed a longstanding a research base around meaningful activities that uh Yeah, I think this is our first podcast on them.

Anna Oh 5:10

Uh well I would also add to the definition that um part of some this this concept of meaningful activities has been in the literature for um for a while, I guess for several years now.

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Chapters

8 chapters

1 What is the purpose of this episode and who are the featured guests? 0:01–5:48 2 How do the hosts define “meaningful activities” for older adults? 5:48–11:48 3 What did Anna Oh’s quantitative study reveal about activity participation in people with dementia, disability, and depression? 11:48–17:57 4 What insights did Theresa Allison’s qualitative research provide about how caregivers adapt to support meaningful activities? 17:57–22:39 5 Why are measurement and classification of meaningful vs. passive activities challenging in research? 22:39–27:25 6 How can clinicians incorporate questions about meaningful activities into routine care and goals‑of‑care conversations? 27:25–32:54 7 What role do interdisciplinary teams (e.g., music therapists, recreation therapists) play in preserving meaningful activities? 32:54–36:58 8 What are the next steps and future directions for research and practice on meaningful activities in geriatrics and palliative care? 36:58–42:35

Speakers

4 identified

Theresa Allison 8 min Eric Widera 6 min Alex Smith 5 min Ken Covinsky 5 min

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Topics in this episode

Alex Smith 6 UCSF 2 Cubs 4 Jerry Powell podcast 4 Ken Covinsky 5 San Francisco VA 1 Artstone Foundation 1 Teresa Allison 3 Eric Badera 4 Journal of the American Medical Directors Association 1 Anna Oh 5 Arch Joan Foundation 1

Source

Recorded28 Oct 2021

Publisherrss.libsyn.com ↗

Transcriptspeaker-named · 100+ languages

Handlerec:20524673

Show notes

Most studies in geriatrics have used metrics such as survival time or disability in activities of daily living as their outcome measure. Many palliative care interventions are evaluated on the basis of ability to change symptoms such as pain. But these outcomes represent a thin view of the human experience. What older adults and those with serious illness often care about most is being able to do the activities that animate their lives with meaning and purpose. Participating in meaningful activities is central to quality of life, and yet is poorly captured in most outcome scales. In this week's podcast, Ken Covinsky joins Eric Widera and I to talk with Anna Oh and Theresa Allison, two researchers who have taken very different approaches to studying meaningful activities. Anna conducted a quantitative study, getting a 30,000 foot view of older adults with dementia, disability, and depression's ability to participate in meaningful activities. Most people think that a good quality of life isn't possible for people with these conditions. Anna's study, published in JAMA IM, finds that most older adults with these conditions are still engaging in meaningful activities. Theresa's qualitative study, published in JAMDA, delves deep into the lived experience of older adults with dementia and their caregivers. She finds that while they have had to adapt to support participation in meaningful activities, the underlying sources of meaning have remained the same. Interestingly, caregiver stress was higher when the people with dementia they cared for stopped participating in meaningful activities. Helping people with dementia and caregivers adapt to continue to engage in meaningful activities is a creative activity that is at the heart of good geriatric and palliative care. -@AlexSmithMD

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