January 17th: Bann-Thamapakorn…Thai massage

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Today I woke up at 0700 to get ready in my clinical uniform for the day. We ate some leftovers from pork pan for breakfast and headed to the center for elderly. We got there and were given a presentation on the elderly center. It was cool to hear about the work they are doing there. They are able to bring in elderly people in the community free of charge to their facility and take care of them. They have a building for female clients, a building for male clients, and a building for the disabled clients. They have a number of criteria that the clients have to fit in order to be admitted to the facility including being over 60 years old, no major mental illness or behavioral problems, and being able to complete ADLs for themselves. It was cool to hear how the facility is helping the elderly community as they provide a place for them to live, clothing, food, and medications all free of charge. The elderly who stay at this facility are able to stay there until they pass away as long as they meet the criteria mentioned. They provide activities for the elderly people such as physical therapy, Thai dancing and singing, and life skills activities. We took a tour of the facility and got to meet some of the elderly people who live there, and they were so adorable! I really enjoy the elderly population and I hope to work with them some day so it was a great experience seeing that Thailand had a place like this for the elderly to stay. I was surprised that there was not more clients who were staying at the facility because they have a growing population of older adults like America. After visiting the elderly home, we went to lunch at a place nearby the elderly home and I got fried chicken and rice and soft serve ice cream! Some of us went to get Thai massages after lunch. It was different than American massages as there was a lot more stretching the muscles rather than massaging. It was quite painful but also felt good. ? For the rest of the night we relaxed at the college. I got some green iced tea with my Thai buddy and then went back to have dinner. After dinner, we all played games such as mofia and signs. Victoria and I also worked on planning our elderly activity for the next day and found the songs we wanted to play and planned out some specific exercises we wanted to do.

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