Health, fitness director keeps seniors moving

February 3, 2008

BY TOM LANG

FREE PRESS SPECIAL WRITER

Proper physical and mental wellness can lead to a longer and better quality of life.

That's the message Karl Schillinger hopes to get across to the residents at the Village of Redford in Redford Township. The Village, a senior living community, is part of the Presbyterian Villages of Michigan network and has residents from throughout the area.

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Schillinger has been the Village's director of life enrichment and Bloom since June. Bloom is the Presbyterian Villages of Michigan's wellness program for body, mind and spirit. In a unique move for the Village, in March it will begin offering a tai chi class for all ages of the public.

A mental and physical health professional for more than 25 years, Schillinger also works with children and other young people at other locations. He began his career in hospital settings from Adrian to Ann Arbor, providing residential care mostly for younger people. He was born and raised in Dearborn, is married with two grown children, and lives in Pinckney.


QUESTION: How much does physical fitness affect mental health?

ANSWER: Fitness is incredibly important in everyone's life, but there are a lot of things that impact emotional fitness as well, and they all work together. It's a matter of equalizing and creating balance in life for your needs.


Q: What do seniors tell you are quality-of-life issues for them?

A: They all tell me different things; it all goes back to what's important to them. Probably what everybody can use as a benchmark is mobility, so if elders are less able to be mobile, that goes to quality of life. That gets coupled with independence. The closer you get to older age, you realize there's a lot of stuff you don't do like when you were younger, and you start to see your life differently.


Q: How do you help them attain better quality?

A: A variety of things. We provide exercise programs at different functional levels. We try to give people ways to stay as independent as possible and as long as possible. Sometimes, we'll take trips to give them some mobility. There are opportunities to be caregivers instead of being care receivers. At Christmas, we collect mittens for special-needs kids at Spectrum Services, and they go visit the kids.


Q: How is working with children similar to adults?


A: You have one group struggling with their losses while the other (kids) are struggling with gaining independence and the changes taking places in their lives. In both cases, their bodies are changing, and also their interaction (with) and perception of others in their lives.


Q: How did you come from a hospital setting to your work now?


A: Inpatient can be a very intense world, and you find out a lot about yourself along the way. It can be so hard (that) sometimes you need to step away, and so I wanted to try long-term care, thinking I might take a rest working more low-key with seniors, but that environment is just as fast-paced and challenging.

For information on the Village of Redford tai chi class, call 313-541-6408.

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