We know that getting older doesn’t mean you stop taking care of your body and engaging in your health care.
Most health information for women stops well before 65. Women over 65 are largely absent from health education, and many told us they feel just as invisible in healthcare itself. GPs telling them a sore knee is just ageing, with no solution and no pain relief. Being served last in shops. Not leaving the house because of incontinence. Planning every outing around automatic doors because they no longer have the strength to open manual ones.
WHEN ran focus groups with women over 65 across Tasmania to ask what they actually needed. What came back was consistent and striking. Women had spent decades putting up with things, maintaining the facade that everything was fine, not naming what they were going through, because nobody had asked. For many women, the focus groups were the first time anyone had.
What emerged shaped this project. The resources here cover movement and exercise, osteoarthritis and bone health, balance and falls prevention, pelvic floor health and continence, and what it means to be an informed partner in your own healthcare. Nothing here requires a gym or expensive equipment. All of it is designed to be used at home, at your own pace.
The videos in this project are conversations, not lectures. Sharon Wilkinson and Jan Jordan are both retired nurses with decades of clinical experience and they are also older women navigating exactly what they are talking about. They speak from both places at once. That combination is deliberate. Women over 65 told us they did not want to be talked at by experts. They wanted to hear from women who understood what they were actually living.
Getting older does not mean you stop taking care of your body. It means the information you need changes. This project is here to provide that.
Credits:
Developed by the WHEN Clinical Team. Clinically reviewed by the WHEN Clinical Governance Committee. Last reviewed: 22/06/2026.
With clinical input from Peta Titter, RN, Grad Cert Continence Nursing, Advanced Diploma of Pilates. Honours by Research (diastasis recti). PhD candidate, University of Tasmania. Founder and CEO, WHEN.
With clinical input from Dr Rhea Psereckis, FRACGP, FAFPHM, Public Health Physician and General Practitioner. Master of Applied Epidemiology scholar.
With clinical input from Sharon Wilkinson, RN (retired). Sexual health nurse with specialist continence training.
With clinical input from Jan Jordan, RN, RM (retired). Midwife and child health nurse.
Special Thanks
The Over 65 Project would not have been possible without the generosity of our volunteer team. Sharon Wilkinson, RN (retired), sexual health nurse and continence educator, and Jan Jordan, RN, RM (retired), midwife and child health nurse, gave their time, expertise, and decades of clinical experience to this project. Special thanks also to Jackie for her contribution and passion for women’s health. WHEN also thanks the students from the University of Tasmania who facilitated focus groups across Tasmania, gathering the insights that shaped every resource here. project report here.
Exercise doesn’t have to be a formal thing, incidental exercise from every day activities can count towards your daily movement. The bottom line is to just keep moving!
Exercise doesn’t have to be high intensity, in a gym or expensive. Moving your body daily has huge benefits and there are many options that you can do from the comfort of your own home. The trick is to keep it simple and make it fun! Movement can be a great excuse to catch up with an old friend or even make some new ones.
Join Peta and Rhea for the first episode of the Little Black Dress of Women’s Health as they...
