Line dancing offers Atlanta seniors an escape from pandemic isolation

DECATUR, Ga. – Each Tuesday, for the final 4 months, 72-year-old Viola Duncan and her daughter Sandra have been coming to the physician’s workplace to bop.

“It is good.  I take pleasure in doing totally different applications,” Duncan says.  “All I’ve to do is observe the chief.”

The chief on this case is a line dance teacher who goes by “Bam Bam,” calling the steps at probably the most common courses at Oak Avenue Well being in Decatur, Georgia, the place Viola is a main care affected person.

“I take pleasure in myself coming right here, I take pleasure in being with Bam Bam,” she says.

“I believe she’s obtained it,” Duncan’s daughter laughs.  “Right here, with Bam Bam, we all the time say you have to carry on transferring, so you progress when the road strikes, and also you flip when the road turns.”

And, that is about greater than staying in step.  

It is about reconnecting seniors who’ve been sidelined for the final two and half years by the pandemic.

Dr. Anita Varkey, senior medical director for Oak Avenue Well being for Georgia and Alabama, says the pandemic has left lots of their older sufferers more and more remoted and minimize off from their social help community.

“I believe loneliness can occur and affect individuals at any age,” Dr. Varkey says.  “However, I believe, significantly for our seniors, who could also be widowed or widowers, could also be not dwelling in a nuclear household, could also be dwelling in a single condo, and never having connections, for instance, that work would carry, 2:50 Dr. these challenges, I might say, are significantly acutely felt by our older adults.”

Sandra Duncan, a chef who runs her personal catering enterprise, says her mother has been recognized with cognitive points.  

So, she moved her mom from Baton Rouge to Atlanta to dwell along with her 3 years in the past.

“I actually really feel like I can provide her one other 10-15 years of life simply by making her blissful,” Duncan says.  “If an individual is blissful, that offers them life.”

Sandra Duncan additionally feels included in her mom’s care on the heart.

“I can go in along with her, can hear every little thing that the physician, they do not hold something from me,” Duncan says.  “I carry her to the physician.”

Nonetheless, she worries her mother typically feels lonely being so distant from her household and associates in Louisiana.

“A number of instances, along with her being quiet, the way in which that she is, I’m wondering what’s she pondering,” Duncan says.  “Who can get on her degree? She must be round individuals her age.”

Dr. Varkey says Oak Avenue Well being needs to supply not simply main care, however a protected place for seniors and their members of the family to socialize, take courses, and simply hang around.

As a substitute of ready areas, she says, they’ve neighborhood rooms, the place they provide espresso and courses like yoga or portray.

One heart, she says, supplied a pace relationship program that was a success with the sufferers.

“All of this stuff do actually increase to carry individuals collectively,” Varkey says.  “So, they could come into the room strangers, however they depart related in a roundabout way, and that’s extremely emotionally highly effective.”

“I prefer it,” Viola Duncan says.  “It offers me one thing to look ahead to as properly.”

The Duncans say this hour of stepping and sliding has develop into one of many excessive factors of their week.

“It retains me going and retains me blissful,” Viola Duncan says.

Her daughter agrees.  

“Good spirited, good vibes and blissful faces,” Sandra Duncan says.  “If you do not have good well being, you do not have nothing.”

Oak Avenue Well being has 5 areas in Metro Atlanta.  

For extra data, go to www.oakstreethealth.com.