Wellness Clinic for County Seniors Spends a Little Money to Save a Lot : Health care: The nurse who started Fullerton facility with $21,000 grant says low-cost check-ups can prevent major medical problems among elderly.

Barbara Talento used to get furious when medical experts would suggest not treating elderly patients for their illnesses as a way of reducing spiraling medical costs.

“When people talk about old age, they immediately think about long-term medical care,” said Talento, a registered nurse who specializes in gerontology studies at Cal State Fullerton. “That’s crazy. If you have a healthy population of 80- and 90-year-olds and you keep them well, you can keep them out of the (hospital) system and they won’t impact it,” she said.

Recently, Talento set out to test her theory by opening the county’s first wellness clinic for senior citizens with the help of a $21,000 grant from the FHP Foundation. Housed on the Cal State Fullerton campus at the Charles and Rachel E. Ruby Gerontology Center, the clinic as begun offering a variety of health programs that cater to seniors.

“What we’re interested in is screening to prevent a serious injury from occurring,” Talento said. “Staying healthy is not having the best drug on line but education and exercise to take care of yourself.”

The free clinic acts as a referral service. Seniors are given complete examinations to test their hearing, sight and blood pressure, among other things. Then, if a patient requires a hearing aid, he or she is referred to an area audiologist for a more in-depth follow-up examination. A podiatrist and several dentists have also volunteered their services free for screenings, Talento said.

Some retirees believe the program will be a benefit to hundreds of seniors in northern Orange County. “It’s great. You can go get your blood pressure check for free and save 35 bucks,” said Leo Shapiro, 86, of Brea. “I think a lot of people will definitely take part.”

Since there is no medical school on campus, the clinic will also serve as a training center for students in the nursing program, most of whom are already certified nurses and have returned to college for more specialized training.

As part of a standard exam, the nursing students will accumulate a list of each patient’s medications and have them analyzed to make sure that different prescriptions do not counteract or react negatively with each other.

“Whenever someone gets older they go to three or four doctors who prescribe three or four different prescriptions,” Talento said. “The person is getting all these medicines from different doctors and no one knows what’s what.”

The wellness center will also encourage each senior to participate in a regular exercise program. One exercise activity planned is gardening, often a favorite for senior citizens, Talento said.

She believes the need for similar programs catering to the elderly will only increase as the population steadily grows older. “We are going to have an explosion of older people that this county has not even begun to deal with,” Talento said. “People just don’t realize what the need will be in leisure, fitness and health.”

According to county statistics, 10% of the county’s 2.3 million residents are 65 or older. By the year 2020, seniors will make up about 18% of county residents, about 546,000 people.

“It is a lot,” said William Gayk, demographer for Orange County. “You’re talking about the equivalent of a city about the size of Cincinnati and that’s a sizable number of people.”