Therapeutic Activities
Because individualized activities is such a focus now in long-term care communities, this page is dedicated to helping those associated with this focus to discuss their successes, failures and encourgements for others to keep striving to provide excellence in dementia care activities. Â
I am seeing new activity professionals coming into the field who are enthusiastic and ready to transform into the next level of activities…. away from entertainment to engagement.
August 20th, 2009 at 12:38 pmActivity Professionals who have worked their way through the career ladder from CNA to Activity Director have a unique perspective on the “new” activity guidelines for nursing homes. When they were working as a CNA – typically not conducting any type of activities for residents – their focus was on providing caregiving interventions. Now that they are Activity Professionals their focus is on providing daily activities and think about residents very differently.
Now these professionals are finding that their department is being cited for not providing individualized activities and that nursing is not cooperating with the provision of these activities. The difference between a full calendar of activities and therapeutic interventions for those with dementia is very different professionals are finding out. Therapeutic dementia specific activities are those that are developed according to the ability level of each of the residents via an assessment process.
This whole scenario is getting to be too much for some of these professionals and they are dropping out of long-term care. It is a real shame that this is happening and in fact can be avoided.
August 31st, 2009 at 9:16 pm