Study links health with literacy rates
Friday July 27, 2007 -- Jason Thompson
Garden Terrace administrator Karl Samuelson says the release of a recent study confirms literacy activities at the Kanata long-term care home are not only good for residents’ mental well-being, but good for their health as well.

The study, which was published in the Archives of Internal Medicine, concludes that older adults who can’t read or understand basic health information have a 50 per cent higher mortality rate than those with adequate reading skills.

Samuelson says the goal of staff at Garden Terrace is to help residents maintain their literacy.

“The key here is to help people maintain their literacy because, quite simply, we always knew it was good for the mind,” Samuelson says. “Now, through this research, we’re able to see that it is good for health as well.”

The study was led by Dr. David Baker, chief of general internal medicine at Northwestern University in Illinois, who along with his colleagues, examined 3,260 Medicare patients aged 65 and older in Cleveland, Tampa, Miami and San Antonio in 1997.

Participants completed a health literacy test which included reading health-related items such as appointment skips, hospital forms and pill bottles.

The study found that 24.5 per cent of the people tested had inadequate health literacy.

In 2003, the researchers looked at 815 participants who died during the initial study in 1997 and were able to determine that 39.4 per cent had inadequate health literacy while 18.9 per cent had adequate health literacy. The study also says low health literacy was the top predictor of mortality after smoking.

Although the study makes no mention of long-term care in its summary, Samuelson still feels its findings apply.

“It’s transferable,” he says. “We’re talking people, doesn’t matter if they reside in a hospital, a long-term care home or an apartment building. The research clearly states that literacy has a positive impact on health and I think that’s the case at any stage in the life cycle.”

Samuelson says he has been around long-term care homes for 20 years and the group of current residents at Garden Terrace is the most literate bunch he’s seen.

“We find that our residents read today what they’ve always enjoyed reading,” be it newspapers, biographies or steamy romance novels, Samuelson says. “I’m very impressed with the large percentage of our residents who still have a very strong interest in reading.”

Samuelson, along with Garden Terrace’s life enrichment co-ordinator Jeff Bedley, credits literacy program at the home with helping residents maintain their reading and comprehension skills after moving in.

Garden Terrace has a good relationship with the Ottawa community library system, which provides residents with reading material, Samuelson says. For those with visual impairments, there is a talking book program.

Another program is referred to as mental aerobics where a staff member will sit with a small group and read some stories from a newspaper. The staff member will then engage the residents about what was just read to them.

Group crossword puzzles using a large crossword board, are also a big hit with residents, Bedley says. There’s also an activity involving a ball with various words written on it. When a resident catches the ball, they look at the word and have to reminisce or talk about the particular word before bouncing the ball to another resident.

A reading and poetry group also gathers each month. Staff or residents will read a poem or a short story aloud to others, as well as a Bible study where residents read scriptures and discuss themes.

“There’s so many little ways that a long-term care home can help maintain literacy,” Samuelson says.