Last Thursday, I had the honor of attending the Healthy Aging Summit sponsored by Zimmer and hosted by WEGO Health as part of the Digital Pharma Conference in San Francisco. There were approximately 30 attendees for this afternoon of networking, idea swapping and presentations.
I left Sacramento at 10:30am to make the 2 hours drive to the SF Airport Hyatt. I actually look forward to long drives like this once I discovered the app for NPR’s This American Life. You can get episodes back to 1995. Each one is an hour long and they make the time fly.
I arrived at the hotel 30 minutes before the 1pm session was going to begin. A perfect amount of time to use the restroom, check e-mail and make a phone call. I received my badge for the afternoon and headed into the conference space where I was greeted by the gracious and energetic Bob Brooks, Executive Vice President of WEGO Health and our host for the afternoon.
Bob chatted with me and some other participants about his love for salsa dancing. A perfect start to the afternoon!
The session began with introductions from each attendee. We had a diverse group of health advocates, doctors, patients, and care providers.
The afternoon included presentations and discussions on the importance of exercise, patient-doctor-manufacturer (as in that of hips, knees and other joints) communication, patient self care and stress management.
Here were the highlights of those talks for me:
- Exercise is one of the most powerful treatments we have. This reaffirmed what my intuition has known all along: we feel better when we workout.
- People don’t like the word exercise. When we call it “physical activity” patients are more likely to get moving. “Activity” sounds much more fun than “exercise.” Less “sweaty gym” and more hiking and biking.
- We use our emotions to make decisions…not facts. After a decision is made we will justify it with facts or other reasoning.
- Decisions are made at the subconscious level before we are even aware of them. This confirmed much of what I’ve been reading lately. Interesting stuff.
- Knowing this allows us to slow our decisions down and increase our awareness of how decisions unfold which gives us more control over our actions.
- Patient compliance (i.e. healthy self care) is improved when patients work with each other or with health care providers because accountability and motivation are critical.
I met some wonderfully inspirational people. Stephanie at Noshtopia is doing fabulous things with food and photography to inspire people to eat healthier. Hint…all of her pictures are taken with an iPhone – astounding
Jodi Seidler had a double hip replacement. We had a long hug during happy hour when I said that understood her need to search far and wide for a cure before we went in for the surgery. I too have seen hypnotherapists, counselors and naturopaths to no avail in search of a cure.
I also chatted about raw, vegan chocolate shakes with a heart transplant recipient, cancer survivor and iron man triathelete. Talk about chronic resilience! His motivation? Live like your donor is watching. Great advice!
It was heartwarming to see so many individuals dedicated to public health and using the latest and greatest in technology to motivate, inspire and inform their communities toward better health.
The afternoon turned into an evening of chatting, laughing and even a bit of salsa dancing from Bob and another enthusiastic attendee.
I then headed home listening to another round of This American Life, had dinner with the doggers and a good night’s sleep. Wiped. Out. (In a good way.)