Southern Hills promotes healthy, active lifestyle for all its residents

Everybody has goals, and currently, Southern Hills Specialty Care’s goal for its residents is to have more integration into the community and promote a healthy, active lifestyle.

This could mean more interaction and visiting with residents from Homestead Assisted Living. It could also be going to the congregate meal site or another place for lunch.

“My goal is to get out of the building at least once a month,” said Myrna Dick, activity director for Southern Hills Specialty Care.

The average age of a resident at Southern Hills is from the middle 80s to early 90s. While being active is beneficial, it is a process on getting the transportation to places and having enough the clientele to go with the residents.

The are a lot of bariatric (heavy set) people staying at Southern Hills who are younger in age rather than elderly.

“Word is out there now that we do have the bariatric beds, and as far as I know, we are the only one in the state of Iowa that has those, because the door frames are wider. The beds are much, much wider. The wheelchairs, we’ve got to be equipped for them,” Dick said.

Staying busy

There are benefits of having a more physically and mentally active lifestyle. The residents at Southern Hills Specialty Care are keeping up on what’s currently popular. Movies are shown every other week at Southern Hills.

A movie the residents recently watched was “Frozen.”

Dick said the range of activities is about improving the residents’ quality of life.

She said one of her ultimate goals is to be able to one day take the residents to the Des Moines Botanical Center.

Other goals would be having a cooking class, going to the Wallace Center near Orient or visiting a local pumpkin patch. There is also trick-or-treating with children during the Halloween season at Southern Hills.

There are plans for Clarke’s FCCLA group to visit the residents.

Rose Wells, resident at Southern Hills, said what she likes best about living there is the nice way she is treated.

“They are keeping us busy all the time,” Wells said. “We have many, many activities going on every day. We have Bible study. We have church on Sunday. We have bingo. We have all kinds of exercises. We have a therapy room. I call it a spa.”

According to Brooke McIntosh, assistant activity director at Southern Hills, they are trying to start a crochet group, which would be held one to two times a month. It would most likely be held for an hour on a Saturday and anybody in the community would be welcome to come.

Clarke County Fair

However, McIntosh said one of the biggest things their residents prepare for is doing projects for Clarke County Fair.

Last year, there were 30 entries from Southern Hills, and they were awarded 15 blue ribbons and 15 red ribbons.

It may still be early in the year, but work has already begun with projects for this year’s county fair in July.

McIntosh said the residents get excited for fair season to begin and visiting the fairgrounds.

“We walked around the fair, walked through the exhibits, walked through the barns and things,” she said. “We were out there for a good two, three hours. We had a good time. It’s one thing they really like to do is get out in the community, get out of the building, get some fresh air, get some new scenery.”