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Moving this to the Long Term Care Nursing Forum in hopes more see it and can help.

Welcome to allnurses.com!

Let's see...I don't think I've ever found an elderly person who didn't like BINGO!

How about having community volunteers come in? For example, our town has a group called the "Silverliners" who are older clogging / dancing people. They come sometimes and perform.

How about letting the residents make suggestions on activities and honoring them one by one?

Super

I had a 94 year old short term resident once...I asked her if she wanted to go to an activity in between rehab. She asked what it was and I told her BINGO. She gave me a stern look and said "Dearie, I haven't played BINGO in 94 years and I'm not going to start now. Besides, that game is for those Catholics and I'm Episcopalian!!" I left the room in a hurry so she wouldn't see the tears streaming down my cheeks from laughing.

Hi.
Recreation (Activity) Directors are a huge part of the life of nursing home residents. Any kind of music is usally well accepted, however, if you have anyone with dementia, have an activity directly after the music activity that will calm them, as they escalate with the noise and the activity. Another good activity is a Bible study, which a volunteer would be able to help with. Crafts that the resident can hang on their door around holidays is always a big hit. Monthly birthday parties. Daily exercises. Daily devotionals. Red Hat Ladies Society. You can also have men's coffee. Whatever you do, get your community involved. And residents love kids and pets. Get with your local day cares and schools (both elementary and high school) and have them come and do an activity with the residents.
One of the biggest things I heard from my residents when I was DON was that they were so bored. And I had an awesome activity director! She was really doing a lot of new stuff and still finding her special way.
Good luck and God bless!!

Harleygirl

Every community has a group that will bring animals around. Here you can get rabbits, dog, sheep, llama's, and even horses brought on site for residents to visit with. All the animals come with volunteers, so its not like they are just dropping off the animals to hang out. You should see peoples eyes lite up. even in your bed you can hold and pet a cat or rabbit. It's great for calming poeple down, and helps with mild depression too. And you would be surprised at the reactions you can get with the horses.

I work in a LTC facility and it seems that every activity we nurses think they would like they hate. My patients had the best fun this summer when one volunteer brought in a little kids pool and they put their feet in it on a hot summer day. It was only their feet and they were covered by hats and other articles of clothing to prevent sun burn. But my residents talked about it for days.
My facilitly also has a "happy hour" once a week were they serve pizza, cookies, chip, and other snacks. They even (with the doctors approval) have beer and other alcohlic beverage occassionally. The men love it and the ladies just sit and socialize for hours.
But i have to say Bingo is still the most popular thing that we do. I happens twice a week and my ladies look forward for it.

Hey sometimes an action movie and popcorn is all my men need to have a good time. The idea about asking the pateints is a good one because everyone has different interest.:hatparty:

One day, one of my lady residents was pretending like she was snoring with her head hung down, and I said "Jeannie, what are you doing?" She said "practicing for activities"! Everyone got a good laugh out of that one. I would have to agree that bingo is always a big deal. Some other ideas are having an older volunteer come in to read for an hour once or twice a week about your towns history(stuff to make them remember how it use to be), also, for your fundraisers-we have a little portable oven that our activity dept. bakes cookies in on tuesdays. They charge $1.00 for three of them and sell to staff and residents. Of course, you can do an annual bizarre to make money (have some of the residents decorate wreaths and pine cone ornaments, etc.) We have a monthly trip to Wendy's for lunch. We have a local school's jazz band come in and play. Also, as Harleygirl mentioned, a monthly birthday party. We have a pastor come in and do room visits, volunteers with pets, children, and church.