The Health and Wellness Expo on Thursday, October 20, at the Kent County Family YMCA will offer a wealth of information, including a gymnasium full of exhibitors and seven talks by local educators on important and timely health topics.

Attendees can visit nearly 50 exhibitors and choose from seven educational sessions led by experts on various health topics.

“Y Wellness Works”, led by Susan Storm, will be presented from 12:00 until 1:00 p.m. and will cover the evolution of fitness over the past four and a half decades, the importance of fitness for functional strength as we age to allow us to enjoy everyday life, and how the “Y” helps its members to achieve these goals. Storm has over four decades of experience in the fitness industry and now, as the Wellness Coordinator at the Kent County YMCA she is enjoying a part time “encore” career doing what she loves: encouraging members and friends to work out through teaching classes and conducting personal training at the Kent County facility.

“Sex After 60” will be presented from 10:00 to 11:00 a.m. by Lisa Webb, M.D., who has practiced ob-gyn on the Eastern Shore since 2008. She notes that “sexuality is a vital component of one’s wellbeing throughout all stages of life. Unfortunately, as people age, it often gets forgotten. Let’s talk about it! Bring your curiosity and open mind to see what a wide range there is for normal for sex after 60.” She studied at the University of Pennsylvania, and did her residence training in the Air Force at Wilford Hall Medical Center. Since her initial training, she has studied various healing modalities, including herbal medicine, hypnosis, energetic medicine with both reiki and the Silvers technique, functional medicine, and she did the Fellowship in Integrative Medicine at the University of Arizona. More recently, Dr. Webb was ordained a Deacon in the Episcopal Church, and she works at Holy Trinity Church in Oxford.

Beverly A. Jackey MS, RDN, LDN

Beverly A. Jackey MS, RDN, LDN, a Family and Consumer Educator at the University of Maryland Extension, will discuss “Improving Your Brain Power with the MIND Diet” from 12:00 until 1:00 p.m. The brain works 24/7 even during sleep and requires a variety of nutrients consumed from a balanced diet to function. This talk focuses on the MIND Diet (Mediterranean- Intervention for Neurodegenerative Delay) which has been shown to slow cognitive decline with age. An overview of the foods encouraged on the MIND diet plan and a recipe tasting will be presented. Jackey is a registered dietitian with the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics and has over 30 years’ experience in community nutrition and health promotion, focusing on chronic disease management and prevention. Jackey’s research has been published in the Journal of Nutrition in Gerontology and Geriatrics and Journal of the National Extension Association of Family & Consumer Sciences.

Other topics at the Expo include Medication Tips and Tricks (9-10 a.m.), Living with Type 2 Diabetes (11 a.m.- noon), Taking Care While Taking Care of Others (11:00 a.m.-noon), and Advance Care Planning for Health Care-What you Should Know (9:00-10:00 a.m.).

The free event is from 8am to 1pm at the Kent County Family YMCA, 200 Scheeler Road in Chestertown. For more information, call HomePorts at 443-480-0940, email info@homeports.org, or visit www.homeports.org.