Research Continued

This week I have found myself in front of a classroom, full of health professionals, professors, and students, as an english teacher. My colleague and research angel was responsible for planning a training session, and she invited me to be a guest lecturer for medical english classes. My being rather unfamiliar with the art of teaching, i'm not sure what help I can be. But the students are cheerful, respectful, and their english is excellent already, so we can have discussions. Today's topics included everything to do with toileting (I'll be intentionally vague here for those who are not intimately involved in health care and may be wary of all this description entails). much to my surprise, I'm actually enjoying myself. I finally have a skill (though being an American, it's difficult to not speak english) that people are interested in and can use in their professions. I hope I can one day feel the same as a nurse practitioner.

Excerpts from blog 7/16/08 - Erin Luskatoff

Research

So. My purpose in China all along has been to conduct research with older adults, living in the community.

I am using a survey tool called the Reminiscence Functions Scale, which was developed in the USA and Canada, and tested originally on college students. Recently, though, reminiscence has emerged as a possible modality to improve self-esteem and decrease depression in older adults. So, what is reminiscence? In a simple sense, it is recalling past events from one's own life, re-visiting old memories, pleasant and painful, and processing them emotionally. Why is this important? Because as older adults age, there is sometimes an increase in isolation and depression, and a general decline in quality of life. Reminiscence may be a promising way to alleviate these events, without medication, and with human interaction, and perhaps affection.

This was a banner week for me, for data collection. After more than a month of revising the scale, which had been translated from English to Chinese while I was still at school this spring, we finalized the survey tool a few weeks ago. While the language may be Chinese, the cultural and linguistic appropriateness was not achieved, according to at least 3 focus groups we conducted. So, we made vocabulary changes in an attempt to simplify the scale, we consulted linguistic experts within the university, we consulted psychiatrists at the local hospitals and university departments...all in an effort to make the scale the best possible tool. So, for now, we are using a finalized version of the original scale. My colleagues here have been endlessly supportive and helpful. I think, ultimately, the scale may have to be completely revised to be appropriate for older adults in China, but sadly, this is out of my project's scope, as a master's student and novice researcher here for only a few months.

However, that being said, when things happen, they happen fast. We distributed probably over 200 surveys this week, with the most rewarding (for me) including outings to local parks early in the morning (6:30...this, for me, is early! but it certainly affords the opportunity to avoid the excessive heat in subtropical Changsha, and older adults are out en force doing their morning exercises). It is simply blissful for me to observe the flurry of activity, cheerful smiles and greetings in reply to my shy "ni hao?", bustling around the parks and sidewalks...people simply going about their day, living their lives.

I am content.

Pictures and excerpts from 7/6/08 blog - Erin A. Loskutoff