 OK, our final talk is creative aging through improvisation with senior adults. Would you give a warm and welcome to Ruth Yamamoto? Good afternoon. I want to thank you all for being here and for giving me the opportunity to talk to you. I have to say I'm extremely nervous, so I'm glad that people are not exercising their rule of two feet at this very moment. But thank you. For a closer like that, I can also speak louder. As they said, I'll get into this, I promise. Closer even, all righty. OK, I can do this. OK, so for as long as I can remember, improv's been a part of my life. As we did that exercise, I was on this side. However, I am relatively new to the applied improv network. I was on the other side earlier. In this time of societal unrest, in our country at least, I want to point out that my talk focuses on yet another disenfranchised, marginalized portion of our population. One that, no matter your economic status, your race, your gender, we will all become a part of barring death. And that is old age. According to the Census Bureau, these are some population projections. In 2014, 13.9% of the US population was age 65 or older. And you'll see that it just starts getting more and more as we go through the years. With the projection that in 2060, one in every two people in the United States will be 65 or older. OK, just to put it in perspective in this room, I don't think there's any teenagers if there are. I'm sorry, I'm ignoring you. But let's assume that the youngest person is like 20. By 2060, all of us in this room will be part of that population. What that am I liking? So that we will all be kind of in that marginalized, disenfranchised portion of the US. And I speak again, I know that we are international. And that not every country treats its older generations as we do here in the United States. So years ago, I became a new member of the HD. I'd done a stuff work. She had Parkinson's. And so a lot of my sounding was kind of one way. And my study, who had his general practice in being part of this group that he was in, and got it back. And he claims that it was because of improv. He said to me that he thought it was good for anybody, young, old. And I would go and I'd look at my mom. And I'd see that she was pretty miserable and frankly. And it was miserable watching her. And I thought, OK. And I looked around. And there was very little fun, very little joy. Maybe there's something here for me. Because also being a newly minted PhD, I was also newly unemployed. I had some kind of pitching ideas. And I had to get to some place that I could be in. And I pitched an idea to the nursing home that I would teach an improv class. And they said, oh, that sounds great. No, thank you. And they said, but you know, the Little Community has a senior program. And they want to pitch it to that class at this facility for my stereotypes that I had. And frankly, we all have them. I know I do. And I'm not a senior law student. OK. And just one more thing. And so I was also doing with my son. Remember, I'm guilty of making those myself. Doing something cute and kind of something fun. But it was something to take him away from that. And what the tragedy of my assumptions are is that I was thinking about old age, like some wasteland of video and information how to go back multiple times in a night and hearing the day that would come. And then, hey, boy, was I wrong. We marched in the line. We put him in nursing homes. And it wasn't because I stuffed my mom in there. It was the best place for her, really, truly. To do this class properly, and being the scientist and the doctor that I was, I thought I'd do a little research that I want to share with you. But we were kind of like, it doesn't stop after 65. You continue to make neurons in your promising center throughout the school. The other thing that goes for the young, they are now showing that you are at the most creative potential in your senior years. OK, you think about it. Actually, that's kind of interesting. Picasso, Einstein, Shaw, Mr. Alinaldo are producing some of their best work in their older years. So I also found another study, which kind of blew me away as I started getting me going on the track that I'm going. And it was done by some 2001, 300 adults from across the country. And he made two control two groups, 150 each. Each were of the same ability, so that they were evenly matched. He did a pre-baseline screening of everybody. And then the intervention group, the experimental group, that created endeavors once a week. So music, dance, theater, whatever, it was consistent. The other group, they just went through their lives. Then he tested them at one year, and he tested them at two years. And the results worked pretty amazing. He found things like it strengthened their morale. OK, that's like no brainer. It improved their cognitive function. He was doing all sorts of tests. I have to look exactly when the quicksand was one of them. It promoted positive health, such that there were less drugs that they were taking, less pharmaceuticals they needed to, less trips to the doctor's office, and enriched social relationships. So here I am, going into my first senior class with these excellent students. OK, so I, I think, did this the darn two weeks. An improvisation, so the study had theater and dance and music, and I see improvisation as a creative catalyst. It's like creativity on steroids. And so imagine confining that in this population. It was pretty powerful. I'm not gonna tell you about how to teach improv. I know that's sort of what was in my blurb, but you know how to teach it. These are things that I experienced and I sort of kept through with improv. That study suggested that creative activities with senior adults who are throughout our lives reduce the risk for long-term care. Again, think about that with your future in mind and with the future of our country or any of the countries. OK? So a group of applied improvisers, you see the rich potential of your daughter working with these senior adults, and they have taught me way more than I have ever shared with them. One woman came up to me and she said, this class is so great, everybody in this facility should have to take this class. And then another one said, you learn how to communicate. Know what I mean in this place. My students range in age from Saturday to their late 90s. They had different mental capacities, different physicals, physical capacity, but they adapted for each other, they accommodated each other, they shared with each other, they were vulnerable with each other, they problem solved, we laughed. It was pretty amazing. We had problems with seniors. I know I'm not the only one. And I'd love to know how to adapt. I'm trying to think of like, sit, stand, lie, if you can adapt with seniors. It gets difficult, so I'd love it to do that. But by sharing, this group is very selfless. That's why I find about supervisors in general. It's a selfless art. And only through sharing can we get better and make a better world for things. I want you to help, you have the tools, you have the skills to help unlock this marginalized population. Wisdom is not just a consolation prize for getting old. It is creativity when combined with life experience. So, it's not just for others in the world that you go out and be proud of people, do it for your future selves. Thank you. It's really extremely inspired by all these folks. It's inspired by each one of you and what you bring to the table. So thank you so much for sharing and being part of this collaborative environment.