For nearly 20 years, Lisa Gorelick, R.N., has been giving talks about “Healthy Living” to the active seniors at Chai Point Senior Living and the Sarah Chudnow Campus.
And she does it in a way uniquely her own, as she described in an interview on June 22.
For one, she always starts her talks by handing out organic and kosher lollipops to her audiences. Indeed, she said, she has become known as “Lollipop Lisa” for this practice.
But this little ritual isn’t just an icebreaker. In fact, it contains a lesson about, and exercise for, brain health.
“One of the things I teach to help memory is to associate a person’s name with something,” Gorelick, 59, told The Chronicle. That lollipops and Lisa both begin with L helps people remember her, she said.
In addition, Gorelick will have audience members tell her their names, and she will show them, often with their suggestions, how to associate the names with something to enable everyone to remember them.
For example, for a woman named Helen, Gorelick said she associated the name with the Greek mythology character Helen of Troy; but audience members said they associate it with famous American blind and deaf woman and author Helen Keller.
But Gorelick is careful about something else in her presentations. She may start out with a topic like improving memory or brain health, but she doesn’t stick to it.
“I’m always changing it up,” she said. “I never focus on just one thing. If I talk about one thing, they fall asleep.”
So she may start on any of several topics. They include “It’s Easy Being Green: Living Healthfully in Your Home”; “Improve Your Health Through Food”; “Your Beautiful Brain: How to Keep It Healthy.” Her subjects can include mental health also, like “Can You Learn to be Happy?”
But audience questions or comments can lead away from any of these topics, Gorelick said. “People will ask me something about a medication. Or about a certain food and if it’s good for them. Or what vitamins they should take.” She also receives many complaints about being unable to sleep or stay asleep, she said.
Some will come to her afterward to ask more personal questions. “The bladder is a big issue in seniors,” she said.
Gorelick is mostly ready for them all, and not only because of her training — she earned her nursing degree at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee in 1978. She showed that she subscribes to newsletters from hospitals, universities, medical schools and clinics all over the country. These keep her knowledge up to date as well as give her ideas. “I’ve always got something new to talk about,” she said.
Gorelick also has personal experience with health problems to draw upon. She has chemical sensitivity, which developed in 2002 and struck her so badly she almost died of it, she said.
She has since become the local “poster child” for this condition, she said, with articles about her and her struggle with it appearing in several local publications (including, she said, The Chronicle).
In addition, she has had severe chronic pain since she was 28, she said. She has facilitated two chronic pain support groups.
For all the variety and digressions, several themes seem to run through many of her presentations, as Gorelick said she emphasizes certain topics and concepts.
For example, “the number one key to happiness is gratitude,” Gorelick said. So she will often ask her audiences to “tell me one thing you are grateful for today.” And she urges “if you’re grateful for someone” to call, telephone or write a note to that person.
Another of her themes is “The brain doesn’t like to be depressed or anxious.” She teaches meditation and relaxation techniques, and promotes the treatment of depression and anxiety with therapy and medications.
Yet another Gorelick theme is “The number one key to brain health is socialization.” So she encourages people to do things with other people, anything from talk on the telephone to eat meals with friends. “It’s an easy one for most people to do,” she said.
Getting vitamins appears to be a frequent topic, especially Vitamin D. “Everyone who lives north of Georgia does not get enough Vitamin D,” Gorelick said, because the body makes it from sunlight, and northern people generally don’t get enough exposure to the sun to make enough of the vitamin.
Gorelick said she devotes much time to talking about how to prepare for visits to health care providers.
“People need to be ready to know what topics they want to discuss” like symptoms and health concerns, she said. “They need to be their own advocate or to take an advocate with them — a family member, a friend, a nurse advocate.”
But Gorelick isn’t strictly business in her presentations. She brings in jokes and games from newsletters and magazines. “I try to make it as fun as I possibly can,” she said.
She also provides a kosher and healthy snack of some type during her presentations. Yet this, too, can be an educational opportunity, as Gorelick sometimes uses this to demonstrate how to read a food label.
While she said she has to be careful about religious topics since Jews, non-Jews and atheists attend her talks, she concludes with a “Loving Kindness Meditation” whose text she shared with The Chronicle:
“May I be safe. May I be happy. May I live in ease. May I be at peace. May my heart remain open. May I awaken to the light of my own true nature. May I be healed. May I be a source of healing to all beings.” She added that she substitutes “you” for “I” in her presentations.
For all the information she gives her audiences, Gorelick said she has received much in return.
“I love teaching seniors,” she said. “They have so much wisdom that they share with me.”
Gorelick will be giving “Healthy Living” presentations at the Sarah Chudnow Community on Friday, July 10, 11:15 a.m., and Saturday, July 25, 2:30 p.m. (See Coming Events in this issue.)
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