Oklahoma AgrAbility Newsletter
Summer 2006 • Volume 5 • Issue 3
Propagating Resilience: Farming with Health Challenges, Disability and Aging
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NOTE: Mention or display of a trademark, proprietary product or firm in text or figures does not constitute an endorsement by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Oklahoma State University, Langston University or the National AgrAbility Project and does not imply approval to the exclusion of other suitable products or firms.
In This Issue
Propagating Resilience: Farming with Health Challenges, Disability and Aging
Start with Promoting a Healthy Workplace
Stepping Toward Health and Success in Your Farm Business
Self-management of Health Conditions
Developing Resilience: Living with Illness or Disability on the Farm
Aging in Place: Adapatation with Age
Arthritis Foundation and Oklahoma Arthritis Network
Peer Advocates Prepared to Help Others
Oklahoma and NAP Train the Trainers
Propagating Resilience: Farming with Health Challenges, Disability and Aging
Hard work is an agrarian tradition, so it is not surprising farmers characterize “good health” as being able to work, the absence of pain, or not having to take too many medications. These are recent findings from a National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health grant study at the University of Kentucky School of Nursing. According to the investigators, if farmers are not working, they don’t feel healthy. This seems like a contradiction, considering farming is an occupation and way of life that impacts physical and mental health through work-related injuries, accidents, cumulative trauma from years of heavy labor, and psychological stress.
Families working in agriculture can develop strategies in the workplace that prevent or reduce illness, disability, and issues of aging by propagating resilience. Simply said, propagation is “spreading the word” from person to person, and resilience means “the ability to recover readily from illness, depression, or adversity.” In tandem, propagating resilience is sharing information about how to continue working in farming by incorporating the ideal of health (i.e., farming = health) with healthy practices (i.e., healthy farmers = healthy farms). This advice is just as applicable to nondisabled populations as it is to people with disabilities.
Start with Promoting a Healthy Workplace
Promoting a healthy workplace can help farmers and ranchers meet their farm business goals. How? Think for a moment about how safe work conditions can reduce needless lost work time or disabling injuries that impact the farm’s production, profit and family way of life. When the primary farm operator makes a commitment to managing farm health as part of farm business, it will lead to taking the steps needed for improving quality of life on the farm for the producer, his or her family and employees.
One practical idea is to start a farm health plan as recommended by the Canadian Agricultural Safety Association. Once a commitment is made, primary farm operators will want to find out from other family members and employees what they feel is needed in the way of creating a healthier farm. This is a time to listen and not make decisions or judgments about suggestions. The farmer may want to list and prioritize the recommendations offered by others.
Next, create the farm health plan. Write down what will be done, who will do it, when it will begin, and why it is being done. Start with small and simple things, for example:
- What: Protective dust masks will be used when brush-hogging on an open-station tractor.
- Who: All family members, including myself.
- When: Starting next Monday, immediately after purchasing dust masks this weekend down at the feed mill store.
- Why: Because inhaling dust from the field can cause short-term and long-term breathing problems, or make current problems worse.
The farm operator can also use techniques to increase health-seeking behaviors of his or her family and employees through awareness activities, skill-building activities, providing supportive working conditions, and following up on the effects of the health plan. A resource guide book is available from the Canadian Agricultural Safety Association to assist farm operators in making a farm health plan.
Stepping Toward Health and Success in Your Farm Business
Copies of Stepping Toward Health and Success in Your Farm Business are available from the Canadian Agricultural Safety Association:
103 Hospital Drive
P.O. Box 76
Saskatoon, SK, Canada
S7N 0W8
(306) 966-9499
Self-management of Health Conditions
Farmers with disabilities or chronic health conditions can make self-management of health conditions part of a personal farm health plan, and compiling a personal health information record is the first step. Personal health information records often include name, address, height, weight, medicines, blood type, health conditions, allergies, surgeries, emergency contacts, employment information, insurance information, hospital of choice, organ donor status, and whether you have a living will or advanced health directives.
Personal health records may be kept in written, typed, or electronic format. Electronic records provide easy updating of information and portability, which allows records to be kept with you at all times. An electronic record can be created and maintained on the Internet through a secure Web site. Some health systems offer free access to personal health information records.
Farmers may also want to participate in disease self-management classes. Many local hospitals offer education in diabetic disease management about understanding medicines, nutrition, foot care, knowing signs and symptoms of insulin overdose, and a variety of other topics. The Arthritis Foundation chapters in Oklahoma offer community classes in arthritis self-management and exercising with arthritis. Self-help classes often cover topics such as pain management, exercise, relaxation, nutrition, and suggestions about how to communicate with health care providers.
Developing Resilience: Living with Illness or Disability on the Farm
Farmers with new disabilities can practice self-management of their health condition or disability by developing resilience. Priorities may change, level of participation in valued activities may need to be adjusted, and adaptations may be required; but, in general, most people with disabilities regain a sense of living a satisfying life, full of meaning, purpose, and productivity. But how does a person with a disability develop resilience?
According to Sharon Gutman, author of Living with Illness or Disability: 10 Lessons of Acceptance, Understanding, and Perseverance, resilience starts with accepting disability and ending the grieving for one’s previous life. Other lessons include accepting the self and experience of disability, learning compassion and forgiveness, letting go of expectations, appreciating the moment, transforming negative self-talk into positive emotions and actions, letting go of the illusion of control, recognizing life as a spiritual journey of which illness is a part of the journey, finding the gift in your experience, and sharing what you have learned to help yourself and others.
Resilient farmers with disabilities adapt. They consider reassigning work tasks to others who are competent to perform the work, arranging the work environment to accommodate disability, or using adaptive equipment or assistive technology to perform essential tasks on the farm. On a business level, they may think about larger issues such as changing the size of farm operations, contracting for farm services, exploring niches, and out-competing nondisabled peers in the basics of inputs and expenses, plant and animal selection, and marketing.
Aging in Place: Adaptation with Age
Aging in place is the idea of adapting the farm and farm home as the operator ages, instead of waiting until age, illness, or disability impair his or her ability to stay productive or live on the farm. It is never too early to think about how to adapt entrances, lighting, and the arrangement of physical spaces for ease of access for the operator, family, or workers.
For example, ramps or zero-grade entrances may be used in new work spaces or older farm buildings may be retrofit. Work spaces also may be designed to accommodate workers who typically sit or stand. Lighting may be used to enhance contrast, increase illumination, or reduce glare. Farm homes may be updated with grab bars and walk-in showers during renovations.
Equipment purchases can be made with aging in mind as well by considering equipment access, ease of maintenance, or seating comfort and support. Add health into farm decisions by answering, “Considering my health status today, can I see myself physically able to use this machine in five to 10 years?”
iHealth Record
Explore www.iHealthRecord.org for more information about using an interactive electronic system to maintain your personal health records. iHealthRecord allows you to control and track access to your medical history using the Internet. Special computer software is not required.
Visit with your physician to determine how iHealthRecord or other systems best meet your personal health record needs.
Arthritis Foundation and Oklahoma Arthritis Network
The Oklahoma chapters of the Arthritis Foundation and the Oklahoma Arthritis Network can provide more information about arthritis and available self-help courses.
Arthritis Foundation
Oklahoma Chapter
3232 W. Britton Road
Suite 200
Oklahoma City, OK 73120
(405) 936-3366
Eastern Oklahoma Chapter
4520 S. Harvard
Suite 100
Tulsa, OK 74135
(918) 743-4526
Oklahoma Arthritis Network
S. Marisa New, OTR, MPH
Coordinator
1000 N.E. 10th St., Room 508
Oklahoma City, OK 73117
(405) 271-9444, ext. 56410
www.health.ok.gov/program/apep
Peer Advocates Prepared to Help Others
Six peer advocates received intensive training in April about how to provide peer support to other farmers and ranchers with disabilities. Dr. Robert Fetsch from Colorado State University Cooperative Extension conducted the training. Dr. Fetsch is an expert in the field of family farm stress, communication, and counseling. Each of the peer advocates received education about effective listening, empathy, managing stress, spotting the signs of depression, and how to link peers to local community resources as needed. Training of peer advocates will continue on a regular basis.
The Oklahoma AgrAbility Peer Support Network provides a way for peers who already have experience with adapting to disability issues to provide encouragement and support to farmers, ranchers, and their family members who are experiencing issues of illness or disability. If you or someone you know would benefit from contact with a seasoned farmer with a disability, please call Gwen George, the volunteer coordinator, at (888) 885-5588.
Each of the peer advocates will be profiled in future newsletters.
Oklahoma and NAP Train the Trainers
Oklahoma AgrAbility hosted a national workshop in July to train representatives from other state AgrAbility Projects about creating educational programs for occupational therapists and physical therapists who work with clients involved in agriculture.
Oklahoma was asked to host the two-day Rural OT/PT Train-the-Trainer workshop because of the continuing education program developed by AgrAbility over the past three years.
AgrAbility staff in Oklahoma and Missouri originally partnered to create a two-day conference for occupational and physical therapists. The INTEGRIS-Jim Thorpe Rehabilitation Clinical Development department joined Oklahoma to offer the conference in Stillwater for occupational and physical therapists in 2004 and 2005, and the third annual conference is planned for October.
The workshop featured a welcome by Jim Trapp, OCES associate director, followed by presentations about the content to include in continuing education workshops for therapists; suggestions for facilitators, session goals and learning objectives; and planning a workshop. Presenters included Carla Wilhite, AgrAbility Program Specialist; Millee Jorge, dean of the Langston University School of Physical Therapy; and Doug Carmon, Mary Beck and Kristi Martin from the National AgrAbility Project.
AgrAbility representatives were encouraged to use continuing education workshops to educate therapists about agriculture; show therapists the realities of life on a farm or ranch; suggest how therapists may prepare agricultural clients to return to work; and encourage therapists to perform home or farm visits early in treatment to tailor rehabilitation to the unique needs of an agricultural worker.
In addition to planning the annual two-day conference, Oklahoma AgrAbility and INTEGRIS-Jim Thorpe hosted one-day regional workshops in Altus, Claremore, Ardmore, Woodward and Oklahoma City during May, June and July.
Upcoming Events
July
28 OT/PT workshop, Oklahoma City
August
10-11 Women in Agriculture, Oklahoma City
October
10 Advisory Council, Stillwater
13-14 OT/PT conference Stillwater
13-14 Greater Oklahoma Farm Show, Chickasha
20-21 Ranch & Farm Show, Ada
November
10-11 Oklahoma Farm Bureau Convention, Tulsa
13-16 NAP workshop, Jackson, MS
December
7-9 Tulsa Farm Show, Tulsa
January 2007
12-13 KNID Agrifest, Enid
February 2007
9-11 Oklahoma Farmers Union Convention, Oklahoma City
Suggestions or additions to the AgrAbility calendar may be e-mailed to ability@okstate.edu, or feel free to call or write AgrAbility using the contact information on page 2.
This newsletter was supported in part by USDA-CSREES grant award number 2006-41590-03434.