Matthew Nickell

SES-333

Dr. Nichols

12/03/2021

Intervention Project: Starting to Exercise

Description of subject (Part 1)

Over the next several months, I will be helping, instructing, writing plans, and more for a

person that may need help becoming more physically active. The person I have chosen to write

about for this assignment is my grandfather, Dennis Shelly. As you would assume, I am very

close to my grandfather, and recently have noticed he has completely stopped exercising as well

as going outside. He is currently 75 years old. My grandpa has a terrible back, to the point the

doctors believe any type of back surgery would not help him Therefore he is often in pain and

often vigorous physical activity the pain worsens. To make things worse because of his pain he

lost his job as a truck driver over the past couple years, which has hurt his financial situation.
Furthermore, he is currently taking several medications that include blood thinners, pain killers,

sleeping pills, and anti-depression and anxiety medication. As just mentioned my grandfather has

both depression and high anxiety which I believe has contributed to him being less physically

active. Because of him not leaving the house as much we have also seen him lose a lot of his

social life as he does not have many people besides family who come to see him anymore. This

has only increased over the past few years as his wife, my grandmother died, 3 years ago which

has been very stressful on him. 

As for his diet it consists mostly of processed foods. He eats bread with every meal, even

if there is rice or some other grain on the plate. The bread is always butter. He eats a lot of cheap

meats and cheeses and often will live off sandwiches for weeks. Which signals he may be

lacking key nutrients in his diet. You can tell he is trying to eat, and exercise however his main

concerns are that he does not always have the energy to exercise or eat as he should. 

Intervention plan and Context (Part 2-3)

Now that you know some basic knowledge about my grandpa’s life and why he may need

an intervention to get back to eating right and getting outside and being physically active,  let's

get into the steps I will help him take to be more physically active for the rest of his life. 

Furthermore, we have discussed why my grandfather needed physical activity and health

intervention, however, we are now going to discuss how we are going to go about the

intervention itself. I will be having this intervention with him, in his own house therefore he feels

comfortable, in his own house. Since he has anxiety, “which is a nervous disorder characterized

by a state of excessive uneasiness and apprehension, typically with compulsive behavior or panic

attacks” (Ratey, 2013). My grandfather shows several of these symptoms, specifically when put

in large groups of people or people he does not like. To handle these issues, we are going to put
together a group of people he is very familiar with. These include Shannon Shelley (his son),

Mickie Shelley (his sister), Donnie and Cathy Wells (family friends), a professional inventionist

or his personal doctor, and myself, who will attend this meeting. My thought is to get his closest

friends and family members to attend the meeting, that way it's both people he knows and small

but also large enough to show several people are concerned about his health. Once all of us are at

his house with him, we will make sure there is healthy food such as veggie platters to eat while

we discuss this issue with him. I would really like this to be relaxed but still get to the point to

show we care about him and his future health. For this setting each of us will tell him how this

has affected us and what we want to see from him going forward. We also will let him know we

are there to help him through this and will be checking up on him often. We really wanna focus

on giving him at least an external motivation to get him physically active that hopefully will lead

to him enjoying the activities and become internal motivation, instead of his current level of

motivation, amotivate. Lastly, we will talk about exactly what we want the intervention to

cover.    

As we continue the discussion about Dennis Shelley’s intervention we have looked at

who will be coming, we have talked about several characteristics of my grandfather and his fight

with both depression and anxiety, where the intervention will be held, however we also need to

look at what each person will talk about as well as a plan to help him keep improving his

physical health on this journey. For this talk we really want to focus on the 3 main areas to

improve his health, which are diet (fruits and veggies),socialization/communication, and  most

importantly physical activity. Each person who talks during the intervention will bring up at least

one, if not all three of these topics in their speeches and how this can be done in the small town

he lives in, Cabool, MO. For diet, we will focus on eating more fruits and veggies and showing
him cheap ways to eat both. We will talk to him about how bread/ grains are okay but must be

managed and this could lead to weight loss which could help take some load off his back. For

Socialization, our areas of focus will be on getting outside to see people and knowing that all of

us are happy to exercise with him or help him in anyways. We really wanna focus on building

that trust with him even more deeply, which can help him with depression. Last is physical

activity which while discussing with him we will have bought him a YMCA gym membership

for one year, show him options for classes, but also let him know walking, jogging, etc. around

his neighborhood are great options 2. The YMCA is specifically for winter months as Missouri

winters are very humid and wet.  Again, letting him know we will all be willing to do this with

him when he wants to. Our goal is to give him a lot of support exercising at the beginning and as

time goes by we will all start to let him do things on his own becoming self-sufficient. This will

show he really wants to be healthy and active not for us but for himself. 

After the intervention we will continue the discussion by having him talk about what he

is willing to do and how he wants us to help him through this. We will sit down and discuss

some goals he will create himself to focus on throughout the next 4-6 months. These specific

goals will be discussed later on as well. The last and most important part of this intervention is at

the very end after eating a healthy snack, and discussing for a while, is for Day 1 to go and take a

walk or do an activity of his choosing with all of us. We want to show him this is not only

something he can do but also something we will help him do and that he is not alone on this,

especially since his sister, Mickie, did a very similar lifestyle change about 3 years ago. She

ended up losing 20 pounds and to this day still exercises daily and eats healthier meals than

before.

Intervention Goals (Part 4)

 To motivate someone like my grandfather, and most other people who do not get out

much or are not physically active, we need to set goals. These will be called intervention goals.

The purpose of these goals are for them to be specific to his needs,  measured throughout the

next 6 months of this process and on, attantable within their given time, relative to what my

grandfather is trying to achieve, be able to be complete with-in the time given. These goals can

also be described as SMART goals. Some of these goals should be rather short term while some

might range as far as 3-4 months away. My grandfather along with me and other members will

set their own smart goals and will be responsible for making sure he can complete these goals.

Below are an example of 5 of his smart goals when first starting to be physically active.

1. I will eat at least 2 servings of vegetables or fruits a day throughout the 3 weeks. I will

complete this by tracking my food intake log everyday after each meal.

2. I will go outside at least 5 days a week for at least 60 minutes over the next week, ending

on 12/08/2021. 

3. I will get 30 minutes of physical activity a day for at least the next month by walking,

swimming, strolling, or another activity over the next month, ending on 1/03/2021. I will

complete this by logging my time of exercise at the end of each day. I will also take all

my pain medication on time to be able to be active for short periods of time when I am

not in pain.

4. I will go out and see people at least 2 days a week for at least 1 hour for the next 4

months. I will do this by communicating with people on a regular basis. Along with this I

will be physically active with people for at least one of the 2 days I meet people.

5. I will go to see my personal trainer at least once every 2 weeks for the next 6 months. I

will do this by scheduling weekly meetings with the trains at a local gym in the area and
 attending these meetings for at least 40 minutes each time. I will also receive take home

exercise/activity ideas from the trainer to help with being physically active.

6. I will attend each meeting every week for the first month then every 2 weeks for the

following 5 months to track my growths in being physically active and diet

improvements. 

Plan of Action (Part 5)

Now that we have described what the intervention will entail we will now discuss

what the first month of this intervention looks like. The first month is often the hardest

month of changing anything in your life. It takes approximately 28 days for something to

become routine in your everyday life so this is going to be an important first month. This

is why for the first month we will have intervention meetings on Day 7, Day 14, Day 21,

and day 30. Now that we have completed the intervention it is time to get to work as you

read below this is what the first month of my grandfather's intervention to physical

activity will look like.

Week 1:

Initially, we are going to call the intervention, Day 0. Therefore everything we do

including the first workout will be included into Day 0. The first week will be from day

1-7. Day 1 is going to be a lot of preparation and will be very stressful for my

grandfather. On day one he will eat a healthy breakfast, then afterwards I will show up to

help him with day one. The plan is for us to drive him in the morning to the YMCA and

to meet with his personal trainer, after brief introductions we will talk about how often

and what days of the week they are going to meet. After having this quick discussion we

will immediately begin to jump into our workout the trainer has planned for him. On this
day I will complete this with him. Afterward we will head back where I will prepare a

lunch for him to eat. We will talk before making sure he knows what to eat for dinner. On

day one it will be extremely important to look at his stress levels throughout the day to

make sure his anxiety is not getting out of control. After this we will wrap-up day one.

Heading into the rest of the week, he will also meet the personal trainer on days 3

and day 5. These will look very similar to day 1, except on day 5 we may have him walk

to the YMCA if he is handling the training pretty well. We will also have him come with

a different person from the intervention each time to have a support system so he can also

get comfortable with the trainer. It is also worth mentioning these “workouts” will be a

lot more leisure activities then say someone who is under 50 years old. The trainer would

more than likely have him walking on a treadmill, riding a stationary bike, and being on

equipment with light weights that also have support on them. We may progress in the

first week, however the trainer is more than likely going to recommend him to just get

used to working out again.

This leads us to days 6 and 7, aka the weekend. In the first week, myself and one

other from the intervention will join us to demonstrate what working out without training

looks like. The plan is for the first couple weeks on the weekends to just go on walks that

range in time from 10-30 mins. The goal in the first week especially with his age and

high risk for injury is to get him moving as before. By the end of the first month we may

get to jog slightly but it is not expected. On day 7 as well we will have our weekly

meeting in which we will check to see if he has been following the contract set in place

which includes eating his meals, taking his medication, and how the exercise is going.
We are also going to discuss how he is feeling and what if anything he would like to

change. Lastly, we will discuss what to expect in week 2.

Note: Day 2 and 4 are his rest days for the week.

Week 2

This week is going to look similar in terms of scheduling for Dennis Shelley, however

there are going to be a few changes in his life to discuss. Initially, on day 8 and moving

forward he will now be completing the workouts with the instructor by himself 3 days a

week. We will still be driving him and picking him up from the YMCA. Second, during

these sessions and the weekend sessions he will be seeing more progressions in his

workouts. These include adding in different workouts, such as assisted bar workouts like

sitting curls or sitting legs ups. We will also increase the time on some of his workouts.

For example the weekend workouts will now be between 12 and 32 minutes a day of

walks. He will still be given two rest days this week. FInally, a meeting will be held on

day 14, having similar discussions as week 1 with food. 

Note: days 9 and 11 are rest days for the week.

Week 3

This is going to be my grandpa’s toughest week each month. In the third week of each

month we will see 2 big changes. Number one this week he will only get one day off

which will be in the middle of the week by now we should see him getting in a groove

and we really wanna push him in case he is starting to get bored with working out. The

second big chance is we are not going to drive him but instead walk with him to the

YMCA each of the 3 days he goes this week. Since he is doing extra, however, we are
 going to go  down to jogging or walking for only 10-20 minutes a day for this week.The

intervention will take place for longer on this week, on Day 21 to discuss how he felt

about this week and what was to hard or easy for him going forward.

Note: Day 17 is he rest day this week

Week 4

This is the final week of the first month and much like week 2 this is another week of

progressions. This should now be becoming a habit for him and hopefully he is enjoying

it. The progressions made this week assuming he is able and ready are as follows. First,

he will walk to and from the YMCA with the personal trainer. Second, during his rest

days he is to come up with his own at-home exercises to complete instead of running and

jogging on off days. Third, for one of the days he is to jog for at least 15 minutes with

myself. Lastly, on Day 30, intervention day, he is to take his first walk or jog by himself

around the neighborhood and time himself. Lastly, we will discuss doing this more often

at the intervention meeting number 4. 

Note: Day 23, 25, and 29 are rest days this week.

Going forward in the months after the progressions will continue and be formatted similar to

week one to stay consistent to my grandfather.

Intervention Implementation Logistics (Part 6)

Person in Control of The intervention specialist that will be hired will be responsible for

the Intervention making sure the intervention stays on track and hits the points we

want to hit without getting off topic. However, I will lead the
 intervention in talking and making sure everyone is heard and we

can come to an agreement on what everyone will do to make sure

my grandfather, Dennis Shelley, can learn to live a healthier

lifestyle. I will also be responsible for making sure everyone is at

the interventions on time, and has everything they need to say and

do to get my grandfather on the right track. After the initial

intervention, I will also take over leading who will go and exercise

with my grandfather for the first couple weeks.

Additional Support  YMCA 6 month membership

and Resources Needed   Research on healthy eating habits for older adults

 Back belt

 Prescription medication

 Running shoes

 Potentially personal trainer (depending on Dennis)

 5-20 lbs. Weights

 Health food (fruits and vegetables)

Plan for Initially, we will give the individual lots of support throughout the

Communication with first couple months of his training, and then slowly pull away to

the Individual show he can be trusted to work on his own. We will ask him to

continue to track his eating habits and share them with us at each

intervention meeting. We will use eating, medicine, and fitness logs

to communicate with my grandfather since he is very good with

being organized. We will also have both group conversations often

 through interventions, and daily individual interactions through

meeting him for fitness activities. We will continue to grow his

social skills through pushing him to talk to new people as well. We

will stay positive with him throughout the process, but not be afraid

to push him through his workouts. When working out at first, we

will try to continue to have him work-out with just one of us at the

intervention, to keep anxiety low and to create a judgement free

zone.

Plan for The biggest concern with the communication with other individuals

Communication with is our lifestyles not making us available during times for this reason

others supporting this we will sit down a week before the initial intervention and help

Individual write a draft schedule for when each of us are available to meet and

help my grandfather begin working out. We will also keep each

other updated through a group chat about daily activity, reluctancy,

eating habits, etc.

Data Collection Plan (Part 7)

Person Responsible for For the first month, whoever partners with him in exercising will

Collecting Progress write what he did in a log that all of us at the intervention will have

Monitoring Data  access to as well as him, and his personal trainer. This will be

discussed at each intervention. After the first month the

responsibility will be on my grandfather to start participating in

logging his own physical activity through the log daily. He will also
 be responsible for the healthy eating log as well.

Progress Measurement  Physical activity Calendar

Tools (explain each)  This log will be used to continually track his amount of physical

activity and what type of physical activity was done. We will copy

a calendar into a google document, that will then ask each day for

the type of activity and duration of activity. This will be recorded

for the entire 6 months the intervention takes place.

 Healthy eating Calendar

Much like the physical activity calendar, we will make another

google doc. With a calendar in it. On the calendar, each day will

have the following items: breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks. My

grandfather keeps a log of everything he eats by putting it into this

log. We will also be reviewing this at each intervention. We will

help him with filling this out as needed. This should accurately

track his eating habits and can also be used to look at calorie intake

compared to physical exertion. 

Note: Their does not need to be something in each column for each

day but should reflect his eating habits, For example if he eats only

dinner he should only write what he ate in the dinner column not for

snacks dinner and lunch columns

 Weigh in logs

This log will be used to track his weight weekly. The hope behind
 this is to get some sense of if this intervention is actually helping

the individual with becoming more physically active. While we

would love to use a bmi test, skin fold test, etc. We find that this

test is most reasonable and will make my grandfather the most

comfortable. The hope is to see continual weight loss for the next

several months.

 Personal health and wellness log

This log is simply asking my grandfather to write one page or more

if he needs to tell us how he has been feeling the past couple weeks.

He will have the option of sharing this with the group or just one

individual of his choosing. This is meant to allow us to understand

how his eating habits or physical activity change throughout the

next 6 months. It will also give us an understanding of if physical

activity is helping his pain level, depression, or anxiety.

Frequency of Progress 1. Physical activity log- daily/ 5 out of 7 days a week

Measurement (include 2. Healthy eating/diet log-

for each) daily/ 7 out of 7 days a week

3. Weigh in logs-

weekly

4. Personal health and wellness log

Biweekly

How will you know if We will know if the intervention is working by tracking the logs.

the intervention is We should be able to see small increases in each area each week.
working? We will really focus on the physical activity log as that should have

a direct correlation to the weight in logs as well. As it would be

unrealistic to see weekly weight decreases each week for 6 months

especially given the individuals age. Our hope in the end is to

simply have him become more physically active throughout the 6

months. After the 6 months he will also have a check-in with his

doctor about his lifestyle and if his health has improved at all

throughout the past 6 months.

How will you know if We will continually check the 2 logs we have in place for him as

the intervention is well as all our progression tools we described above. These tools

being implemented as will let us know if he is getting towards any of his smart goals and

intended? to see if he is still progressing in becoming more physically active

and a healthier overall lifestyle. If we see contestant improvement

in the amount of physical activity, the types of physical activity and

the difficulty of each activity it should lead to progression. He

should also be weighing himself at least once a week to check his

progression in another way as well. Along with all this, if he is

following the rules we have set up for him we will be able to see it

throughout the next 6 months as daily or weekly check-in and

physical activity with people at the intervention will be required.

Next Steps (Part 8)

Todays Meeting: 1/03/2021 6:00 pm

The team will meet in 1 weeks on (1/10/2021) at (6:00pm) to evaluate subject progress
 The team will meet in 2 weeks on (1/17/2021) at (6:00pm) to evaluate subject progress

The team will meet in 3 weeks on (1/24/2021) at (6:00pm) to evaluate subject progress

The team will meet in 4 weeks on (2/03/2021) at (6:00pm) to evaluate subject progress

The team will meet in 6 weeks on (2/17/2021) at (6:00pm) to evaluate subject progress

The team will meet in 8 weeks on (3/03/2021) at (6:00pm) to evaluate subject progress

The team will meet in 12 weeks on (4/03/2021) at (6:00pm) to evaluate subject progress

The team will meet in 16 weeks on (5/03/2021) at (6:00pm) to evaluate subject progress

The team will meet in 20 weeks on (6/03/2021) at (6:00pm) to evaluate subject progress

The team will meet in 22 weeks on (6/17/2021) at (6:00pm) to evaluate subject progress

The team will meet in 24 weeks on (7/03/2021) at (6:00pm) to evaluate subject progress
Meeting Dates and times are subject to change*

Desired Outcomes (Part 9)

So far we have discussed why the intervention is necessary for my grandfather, how we

will approach the intervention, and what our plan to help him be more physically active looks

like. Now we are going to discuss the results we would like to see from the physical activity

intervention. As mentioned previously we obviously want him to improve his diet, socialization,

and overall physical activity. What this will look like is we will notice, first my grandpa having

more energy from eating healthy and being physically active. This would make him act more like

his own self before his health became an issue. Another major goal of how we see come out of

this is to help control his anxiety and depression and maybe eventually be able to cut back on or

stop taking some of the anti-depressants he is currently on. This is a clear sign that he is headed

down the best path cognitively. Seeing him cut down on pills as a whole, is a huge step in

general and I know several of his family members would agree. Continuing, we would love to
put a support system around my grandfather that he can rely on for years to come. Doing this, we

hope to help with his anxiety and make sure he has necessities which include food, exercise, but

also to just be able to go out and talk to people and enjoy life again.

Additionally, we mentioned some of our desired outcomes we have for Dennis Shelley to

complete over the next six months, but the number one reason our intervention group, myself

included, want him to take this step towards being physically healthy and active is so he can live

a longer, happier life. We have seen him struggle over the past couple of years and would love to

see him once again be happy and pain free and being physically active, as mentioned previously

is a huge first step. Many of our family members as well are extremely worried about him

passing away soon if he does not take steps to become healthier. We believe this intervention

will lead to the desired outcome of a longer, happier life. According to Dr. Bains, “150 minutes

of exercise or more each week increased life expectancy by about 7 years over those who didn’t

do regular moderate exercise.” (2020).” Knowing this, our desired outcome is to add a few years

onto his lifespan, which we feel is very realistic if he continues to be active and eat healthy after

the 6th month mark has passed. This leads me to my final point, we hope to get him back to

being outside and active not only for the next 6 months after the intervention, but for the rest of

his life. We want to not just stay active but to have him keep progressing like he did for the past

6 months, as can be shown above in our plan of action. Even if we just meet the one goal, of

having Mr. Shelley, being more physically active after 6 months of the intervention, we believe

this intervention and process was a success for both him, myself, and his friends and family.

Behavioral/Contingency Contract (Part 10)

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1E1LlcBAtccnfvf5u32yWFcJt3TTYMg7iGYluyshu

JOo/edit?usp=sharing
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