Over the duration of the semester, my classmate Ashley
Zapata and I have looked forward to sharing our newly gained knowledge about
sleep and sleep and sleep health with the greater Baylor community and
Waco. We completed our outreach project
last week, culminating in our sleep health/ sleep information presentation to
the staff of Waco’s Sodalis Memory Care center.
I know that we reached many people, but we still would have
loved to see our work reach the hearts and minds of many more. I would guess that we did in fact highly
impact the lives of those with whom we communicated.
How did we spread our message about the importance of sleep
health?
Our main means of communication manifested in the form of hosting
two presentations, one centered toward college students, followed by “the main
event” – a sleep health presentation given to the staff at, again, Sodalis
Memory Care – essentially a nursing home [this term is outdated] for those
suffering from dementia or Alzheimer’s.
Speaking for myself, I enjoyed both presentations,
especially our first one (to college students), …even though it was not the
main focus of our endeavors. I enjoyed
it more than the second because I felt as if I was talking to myself and speaking
directly into my own concerns at the time.
I was presenting information that would immediately and immensely impact
my life.
In the first presentation, Ashley and I aimed to provide
students in the Leadership Living and Learning Community at Baylor University with
the tools and resources they needed to improve their sleep habits and quality
over time…
Allow me to take a side-step. The irony of our two-part sleep health
outreach project is striking because we presented impactful information to
students who are at arguably the most formative age of their lives – namely about
the effects of sleep deprivation, i.e. its reality as a long-term determinant
of Alzheimer’s disease. I couldn’t help
but at least mention to the students at the Acts 2:42 night (a weekly event in
Allen and Dawson Halls – where I am employed as a Resident Assistant/ Community
Leader – centered on verse 2, chapter 42, of Acts in the Bible; a verse about community) the scary potential outcome
of sleep loss given our 20-30 student captive audience. The presentation in Allen/ Dawson for
students definitely made an impact as we received lots of questions after the presentation,
again had high attendance, and I have since fielded more inquiring questions
about the topic of sleep since the event about a month ago!
Still, the second presentation earned its own unique merits
as, again, the “main event” for which we have been preparing the last few weeks
as we continued to learn about age throughout the lifespan in our Science of Sleep
course at Baylor University. The content
of the second presentation proved to hold equal worth to the first because of
the marginalized status community for which we focused our efforts: the
elderly, especially the elderly with declined mental cognitive facilities.
Since we could neither alter the sleeping environment of patients
at Sodalis nor directly work with them to share information about the implications
of their mental impairment on sleep, we decided to “train” the staff that works
alongside them every day. The nurse’s
aides at Sodalis or other care facilities – like the one where my grandmother
lives – are among the most kind-hearted, sacrificial, patient healthcare providers among us. We hoped that they would enjoy learning some
information about sleep patterns in their patients so as to better inform their
service. Additionally, we highlighted
some general sleep health guidelines for the nurse’s aides themselves to employ
in their own sleep routines with spouses or children at home. The specific topics we covered will be
covered in our presentation:
When we present, Ashley and I will ensure that we incorporate
parts of both presentations into our course presentation about the sleep health
outreach project. I initially planned on
sharing some pieces of them with you here, but I have run into some technical
trouble because our visual aid for both presentations were Prezi (and Prezi is
not as user friendly for remote slide manipulation as I recall!) We will also bring the sleep bookmarks that
we created when we present in class as well.
At both events, my favorite area of discussion was
consistently sleep health tips and guidance (essentially the take-home message
that we concluded with at the end of both presentations). I enjoyed the discussion of sleep tips the
most because I felt as if this was a portion where I could truly see concrete
changes in the lives of those in attendance based on the specific guidelines
given.
I so wish that
more information could have been covered in both presentations and I wish that
more people could have been reached!
Therefore, if I could change anything, I think it would be
my communication platform for spreading this pertinent information. Perhaps I could begin a sleep health discussion
trend Facebook or start a #sleephealth hashtag on twitter? The possibilities are endless; and I look
forward to expanding my influence.
“To whom much is given, much is expected.”
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