Good Activity Staff

in my LTC we are told there are too many activity people too - one director , 2 regular staff, and every so often someone from a different department shows up in activity too - this is my issue - - my nursing assistants are expected to stop their patient care and take the residents to the activity, then bring them back when it is over - which leaves me with 1 GNA on the floor to care for 26 patients while this is going on - second issue - weekends are horrible, i think they use this activity called " coffee cart" so they can just walk up and down the hallway and gossip with the staff - third issue - there are no one-on-one activities for residents that are bed-chair confined or just actually dont want to go out and associate with the others, but i have a feeling that they are being documented as such - does bringing you the mail and leaving it unopened and unread to the resident qualify as a one-on-one? - the mail reading is also left up to the nursing staff, which i dont think is such a bad thing but i always thought that the activity dept could do that, seeing as most of the day they just kinda walk around - one thing they do that does help is to feed resident during meals, and that really helps my staff out

There was a really good activity person in one home I worked. It was a religious home and as well as viditing rooms of residents to speak casually and about faith issues, she regularly done baking groups, organised fashion shows, stamp collecting groups, outings to museums and gardens in the summer... She used to be a carer in the home and knew the residents well, she was not afraid to help out.

I love our activity staff. They always have fun things for the residents. We have a really good director who must have been here for a while, because she just knows every resident so well. She knows which residents to pull aside for certain activities, like some who love to cut out paper decorations to put around the center, or the ladies who just love to fold the towels for laundry and have the morning coffee and juice afterward. It's so great.

And the best thing about an activity staff is having some insight into the residents' prime years -- knowing old folk songs, or discussing parenting tips they must've used, or talking about pop culture icons, etc. all while playing Bingo, or playing old card games, singing along to old Elvis, or whatever.

My heart is with activities for our CCD Unit, though -- I really love the idea of incorporating their memory and past life with little activities. Especially music, it seems almost every little old lady on our unit loooves to sing, and even a few of the men. When we all gather for church on Sundays, the song may be sung at five different tempos, but it's with such heart and passion you can't help but get caught up sometimes!