Three groans for the three B’s
Bingo, Bible study and birthday parties — at some nursing homes, that’s as good as it gets. Traditionally, long-term care facilities have come up short in the activities realm, relying on old standbys that aren’t meaningful or particularly enjoyable. But change and innovation are nigh, which means seniors could be belting karaoke tunes one night and watching comedy on YouTube the next. “We’re past just trying to fill time,” says Dallas-based Natalie Davis, who specializes in gerontology and teaches courses on developing activities for long-term care residents. “We want to enrich their lives.” Here’s a sampling of what that looks like:
To each his (or her) own
What fascinates one resident will coax another to sleep. The best nursing homes do individual assessments of each resident — “what their likes and dislikes are,” says Alisa Tagg, president of the National Association of Activity Professionals. “That helps their interests coincide with what we offer.” If a handful of residents move in around the same time and are all interested in gardening, for example, the activity director will start a gardening club and invite those folks to join — plus anyone else who’s interested.
Therapeutic cooking
Many activity rooms are equipped with kitchen items, Tagg says — not necessarily an oven, but tabletop cooking equipment such as a hot plate, microwave or toaster oven. While residents measure and mix ingredients (chocolate chip cookies are a popular choice), they tend to reminisce, similar to “the old days when the kitchen was where everyone gathered to shoot the breeze while someone was cooking,” Tagg says. Some facilities, Davis adds, hold “celebrity chef nights” — the local mayor or beauty pageant queen, for example, comes in to demo how to cook his or her favorite meal.
Doing good
At one nearby nursing home, residents in knitting and crochet groups send the fruits of their labor to local hospitals, says Dallas-based geriatric care manager Kay Paggi. At another, folks bake cookies once a week, then present them to local firefighters. And Davis references a facility where residents made Mother’s Day cards for new moms still in the maternity word — with words of advice from long-time parents to newbies. Other residents make dog biscuits for animal shelters, particularly appealing to seniors who had to give up their own dogs.
Art therapy
At wine and cheese night, residents brandish their paintbrushes while sipping glasses of Chardonnay. Sometimes, each resident is given a blank canvas and told to paint his or her mood, as a song like Simon and Garfunkel’s “The Sound of Silence” plays in the background, Tagg says. Or, the group is presented with a piece of art and then works together to recreate the image. Some facilities bring in art therapists for one-on-one sessions with residents, others display the finished products in art exhibits and others yet take folks on field trips to museums (which often offer special programs for seniors).
Exercise for every ability
Popular options include aquatic therapy, Zumba, tai chi, yoga and walking clubs. And each can accommodate all sorts of physical limitations. Activity directors may, for example, be certified wheelchair yoga, or WHOGA, instructors, or be trained to teach Chair Chi. “You can adapt to any level,” Tagg says. “If someone has had a stroke and is paralyzed on one side, you can adapt the exercises to accommodate their paralysis. Or you can stay seated and do a range of motion exercises approved by the Arthritis [Foundation] — simple things like wrist rotations or finger snaps.”
Gardening
It’s a perennial favorite (pun intended), especially when folks from the Dallas Arboretum and Botanical Garden visit local nursing homes to help residents plant and pot, Paggi says: “Then the seniors have a garden they created.” Similar programs are available across the country. And some ambitious residents take their efforts further, working to create a sustainable wildlife habitat certified through the National Wildlife Federation. The process includes making sure gardens feature water sources, nesting boxes and places where wildlife can take shelter from bad weather and predators.
Music & Memory program
Perhaps you recall the viral video a few years back: An elderly Alzheimer’s patient in a nursing home starts out slumped over and unresponsive, then comes to life — breaking into song — as he listens to music through his headphones. It’s a testament to Music & Memory, a program that creates personalized playlists for people in elder care facilities, reconnecting them with music they love. Research suggests personalized music is a way to bring joy to people with advanced dementia; plus, it’s a fulfilling activity even for those who are on a ventilator or bed-bound, it reduces agitation and it helps enhance engagement.
Technology
A slew of apps cater to people with dementia — Book of You, for example, helps families use words, pictures, music and film to create a digital book about their lives — and nursing homes are wont to take advantage of these. There are other ways activity directors bring tech into the nursing home, too: “We’ll do a virtual travel program where we take residents back to their childhood homes using Google Earth,” Davis says. Or, savvy residents will gather for YouTube hour. They might spend it watching comedy skits or studying different genres of music, Davis says.
Mental aerobics
This is Paggi’s term for brain games designed to be solved in a group setting. It might include, for example, verbal equations (the answer to “7 = D of W” is “seven equals days of the week”), fill-in-the-blank phrases and quizzes. List-making is popular, too, Paggi says — like challenging residents to make an alphabetical list of reasons someone can’t go to work that day (A = appendicitis; B = bad hair day; C = coughing), or of musical instruments, flowers or birds.
Movie night
Nothing novel here — except, perhaps, film choice. Paggi says she knows of one nursing home that showed “50 Shades of Grey” on the big screen. “I can’t imagine what they were thinking,” she says, then acknowledges that sex needn’t stop when seniors enter long-term care. “They’re not dead — look out!” And, true enough, that’s exactly why they need activities that acknowledge that fact.
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Beyond Bingo: Innovative Activities at Today’s Nursing Homes originally appeared on usnews.com
