INSIDE Palouse Seniors Palouse resident and her gardens flourish where they’re planted Mary’s blooms Palouse Seniors sprin g 2013 spring 2013 August | 2013 Smart Homes WSU researchers look for ways to keep seniors in their homes longer Walk for a cause Event takes steps to help individuals, families coping with Alzheimer’s
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INSIDEPalouse Seniors
Palouse resident and her gardens
flourish where they’re planted
Mary’s blooms
PalouseSeniors
spring 2013spring 2013August | 2013
Smart HomesWSU researchers look for ways to keep seniors in their homes longer
Walk for a causeEvent takes steps to help individuals, families coping with Alzheimer’s
At age 85, Mae Durland expected to feel intimi-dated by the computer and 17 sensors installed
in her apartment for the Washing-ton State University “smart homes” research project.
Instead, Durland says, she barely notices them, and doesn’t feel intimidated by them at all.
“The computer sits in the corner on the floor, and I don’t have anything to do with it. I don’t even bother dusting it.” Beyond that, she says, she feels she’s contributing and now knows what she’s “here for.”
Durland, who lives at Horizon House, a retirement community in Seattle, is participating in one of several studies currently being con-ducted by a partnership between the WSU department of psychol-ogy and the school of electrical engineering and computer science, led by professors Maureen Schmit-ter-Edgecombe and Diane Cook.
Schmitter-Edgecombe is a clinical neuropsychologist studying brain changes due to aging and injury, and Cook is a computer scientist specializing in artificial intelligence and “smart” com-puter software. The purpose of the studies is to learn more about the relationship between cognition
and every-day functioning, and to develop technologies that will help allow people to continue living independently at home.
The sensors installed in Durland’s apartment, and in the apartments of approximately 28 other residents of Horizon House, are movement-activated and reveal her typical patterns of daily living. The sensors are not cameras; a sensor installed, for example, on the kitchen or living room ceiling simply registers when the resident moves into close range.
“The data that the computer scientists work with is ‘this sensor went on, this sensor went off.’ They don’t watch what’s happening on video,” Schmitter-Edgecombe explains.
“We’re trying to do this in the least obtrusive way, and trying to pick up when something goes awry, or when someone doesn’t do some-thing they normally do or they’re doing something different or doing things more slowly.”
While such changes may indi-cate a problem, such as side effects from medication, Schmitter-Edge-combe notes that “there’s a natural history of change that occurs in how we function in our every-day environments as we age. The data may help us better understand the transition to mild cognitive impairment or dementia so that we can develop better technologies for
VOLUNTEERS NEEDEDMen and Women Age 50+
Volunteers are needed for a memory study with the Departments of Psychology and of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at Washington State University.
ProjectHelp increase understanding of memory disorders
in older adulthood and assist in the development of smart assistive technologies to keep people living independently at home.
Benefits Receive a report about your performances on tests
of attention, memory, language, and problem solving
relative to others of the same age. This information may be useful in your current or future medical care.
See the WSU “Smart Home” and learn about aging technologies.
Other Related ProjectsTurn your home into a smart home by installing
wireless sensors and contribute information that could allow future generations of older adults to maintain independent living through the development of automated health assessment and automated interventions to assist with daily activities.
Help increase awareness about assistive technologies that can be used by older adults to promote independent living by providing testimonial about your experiences with assistive technologies for a series of videos.
ContactCall 509-335-4033 to participate or for more
information or visit the project website: http://www.wsu.edu/psychology/people/faculty/schmitter-edgecombe_more.html
Can a smart home help you stay there longer?WSU researchers use technology to help promote independent living
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assistance.” Ultimately Schmitter-Edgecombe says her
team wants to be able to provide interven-tions that can help when help is warranted, and to develop algorithms that can “pick up difficulties in real time for notification.”
For example, she says, “a person might have trouble initiating things such as taking a shower or grooming. We are working on prompting technologies that can help them initiate these tasks with reminders. There’s still a lot we need to learn and do to get to that point.”
The tough thing for computer scientists, she says, is picking up on subtle changes. So, twice a year the people living in smart homes are given neuropsychological tests in areas such as mobility, learning, and other aspects of cognition such as attention and memory. They also get called for a monthly health interview.
Diane Cook and the computer science students on the team are working to develop software that can interpret sensor data to distinguish what activities people are doing, such as eating or cooking.
The computer uses “machine learning techniques,” Cook explains, whereby it “gets better at interpreting data by being taught, through practice.”
Dean Hare/Daily NewsKylee McWilliams, left, and Christa Simon demonstrate the software and monitoring systems they use at “the Smart House.”
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Currently the WSU research team is seeking 150-200 adults over the age of 50 — both healthy adults and those who are expe-riencing cognitive difficulties — to have sensors installed in their homes or to participate in testing at the “smart home lab” on the WSU campus.
The on-campus study involves completing cognitive tests and do-ing a series of tasks (such as cook-ing oatmeal and watering plants) in the smart home lab.
Participants in this study also have the option to wear an acti-graph for a week, a watchband-like device that monitors sleep/wake cycles and level of activity.
One benefit to participation, Schmitter-Edgecombe says, is that volunteers undergo neuropsy-chological testing, which could otherwise be costly.
“It can be very helpful medically for people to have this baseline data,” she says, and there is no cost to participants.
Colfax residents Jolie Haug, 74, and her husband, Peter Haug,
77, have both participated in the cognitive tests and completed testing in the smart home on campus twice, as well as wearing the actigraph, which Jolie says she barely noticed.
The couple had lived in China for 11 years teaching English, and “started to wonder how we were doing” when they returned home and no longer had the constant feedback from students, says Peter.
Both found the testing process and the reports they subsequently got back highly reassuring, particu-larly since they each had relatives who developed a form of dementia in old age.
Beyond the personal reassurance, though, they “felt that we were being of service. I would strongly encourage more people to partici-pate,” says Peter.
Jolie adds, “People whose minds are not as sharp as they have been—if we can help them stay in their homes longer, that’s great.”
Likewise, for Mae Durland, taking the cognitive tests every
six months as part of the in-home study involves “owning up to myself that things do change, and it’s good to know. It helps me be truthful to myself.”
As for her overall experience with the smart home study, Dur-land says, “If I can help anybody
else live a better life, I think I should.”
Judy Sobeloff is a freelance writer and teaching artist who lives with her family in Moscow. She is grateful to Bill London for encouraging her to write for the Daily News.
Good Samaritan team has already logged hundreds of miles for the cause
By Erik Finkfor Palouse Seniors
The Walk to End Al-zheimer’s returns to the Palouse next month, and event organizers hope
it will attract 250 people and raise $15,000 to be used predominantly for the care and support of families coping with Alzheimer’s Disease.
This year’s walk is scheduled for Sept. 19 and starts at Toyota of Pullman along the BillChipman Palouse Trail.
Nationwide last year, there were 642 walks which raised $51.8 million for Alzheimer’s care and research, with 364,000 people making up 40,000 teams partici-pated in the events.
Alzheimer’s disease, according to the Alzheimer’s Association, is the most common form of dementia, a general term for memory loss and other intellectual abilities serious enough to interfere with daily life.
Alzheimer’s disease accounts for 50 to 80 percent of dementia cases.
Joel Loiacono, executive director of the Alzheimer’s Association Inland Northwest Chapter, said the majority of the money raised in the walk events go to Alzheimer’s services like support groups, educa-tion and a 24-hour Alzheimer’s Association help line. He said about 30 percent of the funds will go to research.
“The help line helps connect people to local services,” Loiacono said. “Many times people will call us and say ‘I don’t know what to ask because I don’t know what the question is.’ So essentially what they are asking what the first step is.”
Loiacano said association ser-vices are free for users, and money raised through events allow services to remain free.
Jan Ahles, community relations
director at the Good Samaritan Society in Moscow, said this event is huge for Good Sam staff and residents. She said every resident in the facility suffers from some kind of dementia.
“If they work on finding a cure to Alzheimer’s, it is only going to help the whole dementia umbrella,” Ahles said.
Ahles said the Good Sam team started walking for the event
several months ago, and has already logged a over 350 miles. She said there is an area marked around the building that staff and residents can walk. Ahles said by doing this
it allows the resi-dents who won’t be able to participate in the actual event to still be a part of it in some way.
Research into Alzheimer’s is continuing to make great break-throughs, Loiacono said.
He said the progress made in the past 4-5 years
is more than the previous 30 years put together.
Although there still isn’t a cure, he is encouraged by the recent
advancements.Locally, Washington State Uni-
versity researcher Maureen Schmit-ter-Edgcomb is conducting trials on devices designed to help keep people with mild cognitive impair-ments and those in early stages of Alzheimer’s living at home.
The Alzheimer’s Association gave $300,000 to help fund the research, Loiacano said.
Information on the local Walk to End Alzheimer’s – how you can walk, donate or volunteer – can be found at www.alz.org.
Erik Fink was a summer intern at the Moscow-Pullman Daily News.
Walk to End Alzheimer’s returns to the Palouse
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Mary Estes inherited a large brass teapot and decided plant a flower in it. Now she
has dozens of teapots, filled with flowers, scattered across Middle Earth, elements and gnome garden, the names of sections in her im-mense backyard.
“It’s just one of those things that groove,” Estes, 64, said.
She retired in 2007 from Washington State University and has dedicated her life to her garden and the Palouse city community, where she lives. Estes took classes in 2008 from the University of
Idaho Extension Office to become a master gardener. She specializes in roses and volunteers with the Latah County extension office to teach people how to garden.
Mary has grown her collection of teapots by receiving them as gifts and finding them in thrift and antique shops.
Blooming where she’s plantedPalouse’s Mary Estes keeps her little corner of the world well-tended
“It’s just one of those things that groove ... I like things to bloom for me – work for me.”
Mary Estes
Geoff Crimmins/Daily NewsLoren and Mary Estes sit by a sculpture and fountain in the front yard of their home in Palouse.
Geoff Crimmins/Daily NewsAn arrangement of teapots is surrounded by hostas in a garden outside the home of Loren and Mary Estes is Palouse.
Loren, her husband, said Mary can’t leave a shop without grabbing a teapot for her garden.
Estes said she primarily plants annual flowers in the teapots. Those plants tend to die when winter arrives and so she starts anew each spring.
“Sometimes its fun to change things up” and its always easy to find plants for the teapots, she said.
“I like things to bloom for me – work for me,” Estes said as she surveyed her garden from her back porch, which features an interwoven wall of concord grape vines along the railing. The vines hide the porch from prying eyes on the street below, she said.
Estes discovered three passions in life at her childhood home in Browns Point, Wash. Those passions were sailing, horseback riding and making plants grow.
She said there are no sailing waters on the Palouse and her hus-band doesn’t like horses, so after she retired she chose to devote her time to gardening.
“Mostly I just love all kinds of
roses” but her favorite is opening midnight, which can be seen in its own bed in her front yard, she said.
Rose beds are almost as abun-dant as her teapot collection in the garden, which plumes out from the backyard to feature roses along the side of the Estes home and in her front yard.
Loren, a carpenter, made a sign to hang upon the gate leading to
the backyard that says “Welcome to Mary’s Garden.”
Loren aids his wife by watering the Kentucky blue/rye grass on their property, mowing the grass and digging holes for his wife to place plants into.
While the garden keeps Estes occupied in the spring and summer months, she volunteers and takes courses from the UI Extension Of-
fice in the winter.Rachel Rausch, the office and
program coordinator at the Latah County UI Extension Office, said Estes is one of the longest volunteers in the master gardener program.
“She’s just so easy to work with because she’s so outgoing and really enjoys what she’s doing,” Rausch said.
Rausch has stopped to tour Mary’s garden on her way to Spokane. She said Estes is always welcoming and loves to give tours to passers-by.
“It’s just nice that somebodies so open that they’ll share their beauti-ful gardens with others,” Rausch said.
Geoff Crimmins/Daily NewsMax relaxes in a garden at the home of Loren and Mary Estes.
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Puzzle 1 (Medium, difficulty rating 0.56)
Generated by http://www.opensky.ca/~jdhildeb/software/sudokugen/ on Thu Aug 22 18:28:49 2013 GMT. Enjoy!
My classroom days are decades behind me, but I still miss the nerdy pleasure
of heading back to school each September with new notebooks and folders, color coded by subject of course.
Pretty stationery, however, feels like an acceptable substitute. A stack of blank notecards holds the same promise of a fresh start as school supplies do, especially a set that incorporates old-school elements like chalkboards, vintage maps, notebook paper and brown paper lunch sacks.
Chalkboard art has become a big trend in home decorating, from wall hangings that mimic vintage menu boards to entire walls covered with chalkboard paint. But I decided to seize upon that trend and shrink it down to notecard size. Turning a notecard into a mini-chalkboard is as easy as applying a few coats of spray paint to a piece of cardstock, and the resulting surface can be customized in countless ways.
Make yourself a pile of blank chalkboard cards, and you won’t be limited to the clichéd greetings on store-bought cards — you can personalize them for any occasion. Or make a set as a gift for someone else, and include a box of chalk.
Don’t like your handwriting? Draw a cute cupcake on a birthday card or even a simple smiley face — it’s a chalkboard, not a fine art canvas. A chalk ink marker allows for bolder, smoother lines, but a regular piece of school chalk adds rustic appeal. In either case, if you mess up, you can always erase it and start over! A light spritz with aerosol hairspray will set the chalk enough that it won’t get smudged
going through the mail.I made small cards in order to
maximize the number I could get out of a single sheet of painted cardstock, but there’s no reason they couldn’t be bigger.
MATERIALSfor six 4¼-by-3 5/8-inch cards
— 1 sheet of 8½-by-11-inch cardstock, any color (this will be covered with paint)— 2 sheets of 8½-by-11-inch cardstock for the card interior (I used kraft paper, but white or any light- to medium-color is fine)— chalkboard spray paint— craft knife and straight edge or paper trimmer— glue stick or double-sided tape— corner-rounding paper punch (optional)— chalk— chalk ink markers (optional)— 6 pieces of 8½- by-11 inch lighter weight paper for envelopes (I used notebook paper, old maps and paper lunch bags)— 1 sheet of cardstock to make an envelope template
INSTRUCTIONS1. Working outside or in a well-
ventilated area, spray one sheet of cardstock with chalkboard spray paint. Two or three light coats ap-plied several minutes apart should be sufficient.
2. When the painted cardstock is thoroughly dry, cut it in half lengthwise and then cut each piece into three pieces, each measuring 4¼ by 3 5/8 inches. These will become your card fronts.
3. Cut each of the other two pieces of cardstock into three rectangles, each measuring 3 5/8 inches by 8 ½ inches. Fold in half to form a card.
Create old-school stationery with chalkboard paint
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4. Glue a chalkboard card front to the front of each card. Or for variety, cut some of the chalkboard fronts into “speech bubble” shapes, or trim them with decorative edge scissors. Use a paper-punch to round the corners of the cards, if desired.
5. To “season” the chalkboards, rub a piece of chalk over the surface of the cards and erase it with a soft cloth. I found the surface fairly forgiving — if you make a mistake or don’t like your lettering, wipe it down with a barely-damp cloth and start over.
6. To make the envelopes, search online for free, A2 envelope templates. I used one from a blog called Artsy Bride (http://bit.ly/1cXTgsO ). Download and print the template on cardstock at 85 percent of its original size. Cut out the template and trace it onto note-book paper, a map or a lunch bag.
7. Cut out the envelope shape and fold the sides and flaps in, gluing where necessary to hold the envelope together.
Associated PressThis handmade notecard was made by spraying cardstock with chalkboard paint.
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Generated by http://www.opensky.ca/~jdhildeb/software/sudokugen/ on Thu Aug 22 18:28:49 2013 GMT. Enjoy!
Sudoku solution Puzzle on Page 9
Metro Editorial
Heart disease is one of the leading causes of death across the globe. According to the
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Perhaps the most troubling fact about the prevalence of heart disease is that it can be largely preventable. The American Heart Association notes that there are several ways to easily improve heart health.n Embrace aerobic exercise.
Aerobic exercise is essential to cardiovascular health. Daily aerobic exercise, which can be as simple as walking around the neighborhood, can help men and women lower
their blood pressure, maintain a healthy weight and lower their bad cholesterol, which can circulate in the blood and cause blockages that can lead to heart attack.n Adopt a low-sodium diet
that’s also low in cholesterol. Diet can be a friend or foe with regards to heart disease. A heart-friendly diet that’s low in sodium and cholesterol can help you maintain healthy cholesterol levels as well as a healthy blood pressure.n Monitor your blood pressure.
A blood pressure reading is a staple of many doctor visits, but men and women should monitor their blood pressure even when they aren’t visiting their physicians.
High blood pressure does not always produce symptoms, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t potentially deadly. High blood pressure is the leading cause of stroke and can contribute to heart and kidney disease.
Improving heart health need not be difficult
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