Kingston to be home to first Center for Healthy Aging

The Canadian Frailty Network (CFN) celebrated the launch of its first Center for Healthy Aging on Thursday morning.

CFN and MP Mark Gerretsen announced a $950,000 federal investment featuring booths from local agencies promoting healthy aging at the “Aging Well Together” event at Kingston City Hall.

The event was intended to introduce the people of Kingston to a new and first regional center that helps connect older adults to local resources that help promote healthy aging.

Free online programs help seniors assess and adjust their lifestyles, reduce the effects of frailty, and connect to community resources.

Through regional centers, CFN can make it as easy as possible to identify what older adults may be missing from a healthy old age lifestyle and who they can connect with in their communities to help address it. I want to be like you.

Dr. John Muscedere, CFN’s scientific director and professor at Queen’s, said the program should point people in the right direction to get and increase the level of individualization when people receive health advice. said.

Dr. Muscedere said:

“This is not designed for us to do everything, but it is designed to help us target our efforts to the local organizations that are actually supporting it.”

Federal funding will help the program expand its outreach, especially to involve low-income seniors.

Dr. Muscedere said the first step in making the program accessible in front of older people is critical to making an impact.

“By actually working directly with them, we can better design programs to reach people who might otherwise not be reachable,” said Dr. Muscedere.

“So we can expand the scope of what we do.”

These centers promote five main categories of healthy aging that CFN has identified and calls AVOID. activity, vaccination, medication optimization, reducing social isolation, and diet.

MP Mark Gerretsen said the federal government is committed to promoting healthy aging and a program that can provide more personalized and targeted information to those who need it could be a big step forward. I was.

“It may be different here than elsewhere. To really focus on the region in this way is to address the needs of the region,” Gerretsen said.

“People can really assess their individual needs, and the organizations here can help them meet and meet those needs.”

Kingston, Frontenac, Lenox and Addington are the first regions to have Healthy Aging Centers, but the program will be expanded to cities across the country.