Coral Springs Medical and Dental has opened a new Senior Activity Center featuring a variety of classes as part of its facility that offers primary care, family medicine, geriatrics, behavioral health, podiatry and dental care.
Chief Operating Officer Randy Kirshbaum is not only passionate about the traditional medical services for the center, but he said he loves the fact that they can offer a wide range of free additional activities for their clients.
“Our center is 10,000 square feet. We wanted space for our medical and dental aspects of the center, but we also wanted to accommodate a Senior Activity Center,” he said. “We created this facility in partnership with CarePlus and Humana.”
Kirshbaum said that, in creating the center, the idea was to provide as many services as possible.
“We wanted to help seniors with not only physical wellness but with mental wellness as well,” he said.
Bringing a creative approach
Dr. James Cassidy is the center’s director of activities. The classes are tailored for people 65 and older and there’s no limit to being creative about their offerings, he said.
Cassidy has discovered a passion for administering senior centers. The first one he founded happened five years ago in Delray Beach. He started with two programs and eight people, then three years later he had 18 programs and saw 1,200 seniors per month.
At the Coral Springs center, the classes are free to anyone over 65.
Bringing a sense of innovation and creativity has led Cassidy to develop a creative and holistic approach to the classes so that they can have maximum impact on older people.
“We tailor our programs after the six dimensions of wellness, which are physical, social, intellectual, spiritual, emotional and occupational,” he said. “We have three exercise classes, including tai chi chair yoga.”
“My role is to put on as many programs to help seniors deal mentally, emotionally, spiritually and physically with aging and chronic disease.”
Spiritual wellness is a dimension that many older people are struggling with, especially after they get hit with the loss of their spouse after 50 years and their children don’t have much time for them, Cassidy said.
“With spiritual wellness, we’re going to explore all types of spirituality,” he said. “We have an African drumming session coming up. Once seniors start getting involved in the programs, they start really learning what wellness is about. It can change some seniors’ lives instantaneously.”
Cassidy said he also wants older patients to realize there are also more academically measured programs that they can come to experience.
“While we do have a holistic approach, we also have a lot of evidence-based programs here, like Diabetes Self-Management and Powerful Tools for Caregivers,” he said. “Those are all programs that are designed by Stanford Medical School. We also have free screenings programs, including vision, hearing screening and memory screening.”
The wellness approach Cassidy favors is being brought to older people with the understanding that there are intangible factors that lead to illness.
“Seniors battle with changes in their body and facing their own mortality,” he said. “So emotionally, psychologically and spiritually, we want to help them, because they don’t have the equipment to meet these devastating challenges.”
Cassidy also introduced a series on brain fitness.
“We have a neuropsychology student who will teach seniors about a specific section of the brain,” he said. “The seniors then play specific brain games to challenge that part of their brain to help improve it.”
The other part of brain fitness is linked to the food that older people eat as well, Cassidy said. “We’ve also added a nutritionist who will come in and give talks on a healthy brain diet, including discussing the best foods to maintain cognitive health and memory. We’re also going to be serving healthy brain smoothies at this class.”
Cassidy said that they plan to continue introducing new programs and services for Coral Springs residents.
Coral Springs Medical and Dental is at 2029 N. University Drive. Visit .
