Volunteering and Healthy Aging A Great Combination for Seniors

By Dr. Taylor Alexander, Dr. Neena L. Chappell, PhD, FRSC

Volunteering and Healthy Aging: A Great Combination for Seniors

So, you want to stay happy and healthy in your senior years? The right prescription may be a healthy dose of volunteering.

That's the conclusion of Volunteering and Healthy Aging: What We Know, a recent paper by world-renowned gerontologist, Dr. Neena Chappell, Director of the University of Victoria Centre on Aging. Year 2001 has been chosen to be the International Year of Volunteers.

In the paper, co-sponsored by Volunteer Canada, Health Canada and Manulife Financial, Dr. Chappell observes that seniors who give their time to a volunteer activity, especially if it involves helping others, are happier and healthier in their later years.

Based on an extensive review of North American research literature on the relationship between health in old age and participation in volunteer activities, Volunteering and Healthy Aging underlines the important role of social support in volunteer activities. "When volunteers are valued and supported in their efforts they see their work as meaningful and fulfilling," notes Dr. Chappell. "This has a tremendously positive impact on their health and overall sense of well-being."

Whether engaged in formal or informal volunteering tasks, Dr. Chappell notes that volunteers derive health benefits from volunteering because they feel they are useful and making a contribution. "Volunteering is a people-to-people business," says Dr. Chappell. "It's the personal contact that counts. A lot of the health benefits come from being in touch with others and having an impact on their lives."

Dr. Chappell's paper also confirms that the social interaction inherent in volunteering has an impact on quality of life and mortality. It also supports literature findings which indicate that isolated individuals tend to die younger and that social engagement through volunteering can help mediate the effects of stress in seniors' lives.

"Given this knowledge, I think we have to do a lot more to create meaningful volunteer opportunities for seniors," concludes Dr. Chappell. "We also have to get better at showing seniors that we recognize and value the contributions they continue to make to Canadian society."

Helping Canada's informal caregivers access needed respite services The informal caregiving system in Canada is often referred to as our hidden health care system - and with good reason. Approximately 80 percent of home-based care across the country is provided without pay by patients' spouses, children, other close relatives or friends.

Each week this invisible army of some 4.5 million informal caregivers contributes an estimated $100 million out-of-pocket - at least $5 billion annually* - to care for the more than 600,000 home care recipients in Canada. This huge financial contribution is on top of the tremendous amount of time these caregivers provide on a volunteer basis.

"There's no way our formal health care system could match this enormous contribution," says Dr. Taylor Alexander, President and CEO of the Canadian Association for Community Care (CACC), whose members include over 300 Canadian agencies and organizations, most of which provide direct community care services, such as home care, home support, Meals on Wheels, and long-term care. "These informal caregivers are really the backbone of home and community care in Canada."

Dr. Alexander says family caregivers face daunting emotional, physical and financial challenges in carrying out their caregiving roles. For many, the demands of providing around-the-clock care, 24 hours per day, 7 days a week, lead to physical and emotional exhaustion. "There is a huge number of people out there who need access to services that give them time off, or respite, from these heavy demands, as well as support, information and training to help them carry on with their caregiving roles," he emphasizes.

While the use of respite services is an important factor in helping prevent caregiver burn-out, Dr. Alexander says these services are greatly under-utilized by caregivers, often because of lack of awareness of services or lack of attention on the part of caregivers to their own respite needs.

In response, CACC has initiated an innovative national project, funded by Health Canada's Population Health Fund, aimed at helping family caregivers overcome barriers to using respite services. CACC's project is being guided by a National Advisory Committee composed of organizations such as VON Canada, Canadian Pensioners Concerned and the Canadian Ethnocultural Council, three universities - Regina, Alberta and Queen's - provincial governments, and other national and provincial partners.

The project involves cross-country focus groups with caregivers and service providers, a national focus group of caregivers' representatives, national organizations and policy makers, as well as a national survey of family caregivers, service providers, policy makers and program managers. These activities will help CACC determine the barriers to using respite services, and how to overcome them.

"We'll be identifying best practice models and consulting closely with provincial and territorial governments about the feasibility of adapting our project findings to future policies and programs in their respective jurisdictions," says Dr. Alexander. He adds that educational materials will also be developed and widely disseminated to caregivers, respite service providers and related organizations.

"The elimination of barriers to respite services is an absolute necessity for our unpaid army of informal caregivers," says Dr. Alexander. "By addressing their respite needs we are affirming the importance of their work and recognizing the vital contribution they make to Canada's health services system."

Seniors and Volunteering - Did You Know?

In 1997, 800,000 Canadians aged 65 and over more than 23% of the total senior population participated in volunteer activities.

Volunteer for the health of it!

Studies show a direct link between volunteering and healthy aging. For Canadian seniors, the health benefits of volunteering include:

Check out the benefits!

Ask any senior volunteer and you'll discover that volunteering is a great way to:

*Adapted from Volunteering ... A Booming Trend Seniors and Volunteering: tapping into a booming trend With Canadians living longer and retiring earlier, the number of older, active adults able and willing to volunteer across Canada is rapidly increasing. For more information about Volunteer Canada or any of its resources, or to obtain for more information on the CACC and its community care activities, visit the Association's web site at www.cacc-acssc.com