Today I began my day with a coffee at Espresso House before taking the bus to Cathinka Guldberg. Cathinka is a nursing home or, “home for the aged” owned by Lovisenburg, which is the nursing school where we took our classes. Today we were on floor 6, which is specifically for dementia patients. These patients are relatively physically healthy, but are unable to care for themselves due to their cognitive decline. Most of these patients do not have chronic conditions, such as diabetes or hypertension; I found this to be interesting as these conditions are extremely common in the elderly population in the US!

Our nurse explained that they first turn to alternative measures before patients are placed on medications. Some things that the nurses do to promote the well-being of the patients are excellent hygiene and nutrition, swimming classes in their pool, calming music/ environment, outdoor space, activities, church, and dolls for the residents to take care of. She also explained that everyone who needs to is able to live in a nursing home regardless of financial resources. This relates to sustainable development goal 10, “Reduced Inequalities”. By allowing all people the basic necessity of medical care, people of different socioeconomic status can care for their health, thus reducing inequalities.

Today we began our day by taking the bus to Norsk Folkemuseum, the Norwegian Museum of Cultural History. Here we had a wonderful tour of a town that resembled what it would be like to live in the Oslo suburbs in the 1800s. Our tour guide told us that 10-12 people would share one small house. Additionally, the entire suburb shared one water pump and dumped waste into the streets. This relates to Sustainable Development Goal 6- Clean Water and Sanitation. This allowed me to see how not having access to clean water and sanitation would impact daily life. For some people we take this for granted, however for those who do not have access to clean water and sanitation, infectious diseases can be more easily spread.

We walked through beautiful gardens with medicinal plants, saw cows grazing in a field, and ran into an “Apotek” or pharmacy. Lastly, we saw The Stave Church was a beautiful Nordic style- building built in roughly 1200. Our tour guide told us that women sat on the left side of the church that was north-facing because evil/ demons were thought to come from the north. Men sat on the right side of the church so that they could escape out the open door if any evil/ demons came from the north side.

We continued our day by taking the bus to Omsorg +, which is an apartment complex/ living community for elders in Oslo. We made Buckeyes for the residents and got to know each other over coffee. It was very entertaining to watch them try the Buckeyes as many of them said that they are too sweet and sugary for their liking; This was funny to me because as Americans we are very used to sugar!