Dear Administrator, I’m looking down your hallways for evidence of the meaningful activities you’re supposed to be encouraging for the residents.
Let me give one definition of a “meaningful activity.” It is the ability to have an impact on your environment and the people around you.
Our brains are hardwired to want to do meaningful things. That is why we like to:
- Talk
- Write
- Do artwork
- Play instruments
- Sing
- Build things
- Break things
- Fix things
- Fight
- Love
- Post stupid things to Facebook
It’s also part of why our residents want to “go home.” That’s where they used to be able to have an impact on the environment and people around them. Their lives had meaning at home. But, you say, they can do all sorts of meaningful things at our facility. I wonder.
Do you allow resident artwork to be used to decorate the building? Or do you send it back to their rooms and hope it disappears? With some level of support or adaptation, seniors can produce Pinterest-worthy creations to hang in the hallways and common areas.
Do you know that your hallways and common areas are boring? Most facilities I’ve been to have had the same artwork on the walls for years. Cognitive science tells us that habituation, getting so used to something being there that it becomes “invisible,” takes only about a month. Our residents need fresh cognitive and sensory stimulation. They could be producing new items for rotation every season or even monthly. What a win-win!
Do you really want to boost family and resident satisfaction? Try showing them a piece of wall art purchased by an interior decorator. Then try showing them something that is on prominent display, something the resident helped make. Different reaction? You bet.
Actually, there are other important benefits to meaningful activity besides increased satisfaction. A second benefit is that it makes family members and staff look at their residents in a different light. Suddenly, they’re not helpless or hopeless, but capable of doing meaningful things. I have seen this reaction many times and it is one of the reasons I love my job.
Residents do enjoy having ownership over their environment, the feeling that they helped make it seasonal or beautiful or even functional. I admit that sometimes it’s hard for me as an activity professional to back off and let them do it. My activity director helped me back off so a resident could make the calls on designing the fall photo backdrop this year. It looked great. And having residents working together on a large, group project builds group identity. In these years of isolation, group identity is gold.
Do I worry that the residents have lost the skills necessary to do the job? When I end up buying most of the decorations, or have to do most of a craft “for” the resident, I consider that a failure on my part. It means I didn’t adapt the project to what my residents were capable of doing themselves. This includes memory care units. Sometimes hands and eyes that can’t manage a little paint brush do just fine with a four-inch paint roller.
Speaking of small, let’s talk popsicle-stick picture frames. A lot of what goes around as craft ideas for residents is small. Of course, if it has to fit in their rooms, it needs to be small. But what if we could display something in the hall or in a courtyard or by the front entrance?
And everyone worries about budget. Isn’t bigger more expensive? Not necessarily. I’ve done big projects on the cheap for so long I kind of cringe when I see expensive little craft kits.
So, the pros and cons of resident-produced decorations for common areas? Ownership, fresh visual stimulation, using latent capabilities of residents at almost all physical/cognitive levels, family satisfaction, family and staff attitude improvement, potentially low price, group identity, meaningful activity. Are there any cons?
I am grateful for the leadership where I work. They let me try the big projects AND put the results on display. One resident has been working on his own, painting large, basic birdhouses that he gets from a friend. Just the other day, he decided that he wanted to put one up right near the front entrance. We asked our administrator if that was even a possibility. She laughed and said, “I don’t see why not!” Imagine.
Donna Stuart has worked as an activity professional in long-term care for the past 10 years. She previously worked as a high school science teacher and a field linguist/language surveyor.
The opinions expressed in McKnight’s Long-Term Care News guest submissions are the author’s and are not necessarily those of McKnight’s Long-Term Care News or its editors.
