Katie Sutcliffe
Creative Inquiry
As of August 2015, I participated in my first experience with a Health Science Creative Inquiry course. My role is currently as a student researcher along with 10 of my other classmates. Once this course officially began I learned about Alzheimer's disease and related disorders and how to interact with patients who have dementia. I also learned about heart rate variability, its significance, and how to measure it for caregivers of patients with Alzheimer's disease. This course is very important for me as a potential occupational therapist as I am interested in working with geriatrics in the future. I intend to learn as much as I can from this experience and take what I have learned with me as I extend my academic career in the pursuit of a Master's in Occupational Therapy.
Each week I lead a group of students, who helped distribute various activities to the patients with Alzheimer's disease. These activities included: adult coloring, puzzles, building blocks, singing, games, etc. Depending on what activity each person enjoyed, we would cater the activities according to their feedback and our observations. I also kept notes on the patients in order to remember the success of weekly activities with each individual patient. In another group of students, heart rate variability measurements would be collected. Those sessions were used to teach caregivers the importance of the stress levels occurring in their bodies and ways to improve those levels through different coping mechanisms. This group also worked as a support group for the caregivers as they would have one-on-one time with a student during data collection, but also there were other caregivers around them who understood what he or she was going through. Even though these two groups were trying to accomplish different goals each week, we were working together to provide a helpful tool for caregivers in order to alleviate some stress in their lives. To find our more information about Alzheimer's disease or heart rate variability (HRV) click on the buttons located at the bottom of the page.
Clemson Downs was our final site where we held our Creative Inquiry sessions. Click the image above to learn more about the memory care at the Creekside Cottage at Clemson Downs.
Above, is a picture of the beautiful church where we began our first sessions during the Creative Inquiry. Click the image above to learn more about the Episcopal Church of the Ascension.
Greenville Health System (GHS) contains the Center for Success in Aging. This was the second site in which our Creative Inquiry sessiosn were held. Click the image above to learn more about the memory care at GHS.
Below, you can view a training session in which we learned about Teepa Snow's Positive Approach to Care. We also participated in group exercises to teach us how it may feel to be someone with severe dementia. These sessions were important in teaching us about normal aging and how to interact with people who have dementia.
Below, in Figure 1, you can view a heart rate variability measurement taken using an emWave 2. This is just an example that I created using myself as the subject for demonstration purposes. You can see that I was in coherence for 40% medium coherence and in 60% low coherence during the two-and-a-half time interval. Coherence, to simply put it, is the balance between our emotions and our phsyical being. In the first example I was not in high coherence at all, which is a bad heart rate variability. to have good heart rate variability I would need to be able to get my physical body and my emotions in a sort of balance for good overall health. There are ways to improve this with a little bit of learning and practice of things like meditation for example.
Next, in Figure 2 , you can see that my coherence levels improved, therefore my heart variability was slightly better here. I had a 54% low coherence, 21% medium coherence, and 25% high coherence level for the two-and-a-half minute time interval. This information is helpful in order to understand what stress is doing to our bodies. The emWave 2 is a tool that the Creative Inquiry course decided to use in order to get an unbiased idea of how stress may be affecting us. These measurements of HRV is what we used to determine coherence for the caregivers of patients with Alzheimer's disease. We had the same routine for all three locations even though we encountered differences among each caregiver as expected. You can click here to learn more about heart rate variability and coherence.
Figure 1. Baseline coherence measurement
Figure 2. Graditude or Appreciation coherence measurement
Figure 3. Below, you can view a copy of our Creative Inquiry poster from Fall 2015. This poster shows the research about heart rate variability and coherence in adut caregivers conducted from during the semester.
Click on the "Alzheimer's" button above to learn more about this disease from the Alzheimer's Association.
Click on the "HRV" button above to learn more about the importance of heart rate variablity and how it relates to your health.