Activities Planning

Needs and Interests

Assessing a resident for activities should be a journey into their past interests, dreams and leisure skills. While we are all defined by "what we do" for a living, we still have talents way beyond the job that paid us. We enjoy spending an evening with our family helping with homework, we love to watch re-runs of "The Honeymooners" or we have a hobby that we use to reduce the stresses of the day. On the weekends we look forward to fishing in our favorite pond or we make that extra pot of coffee and gossip with our neighbors. All are interests that residents would like to continue to enjoy. Do we look for that on our assessments? Do we ask the questions that will assist with meeting their needs?

Many times we find out that residents participated in Community Groups only in their obituary. Did we find that information out during their assessment? Did we ask their loved ones about their accomplishments? Did we make those accomplishments known while they lived with us or are we mentioning them at their Memorial Service?? Does your assessment include areas for this information or are we still referring to their medical condition?
Do we seek out information that actually reflects the interests? Would a resident like to continue their "schooling"? Would a resident like to accomplish something totally different in their life time. Have we probed into what those "dreams" are? Are we adapting the activities to meet those interests?

If a resident is interested in going to the Louvre in Paris, what have we done to accomplish that dream? Do we have reproductions of the paintings hanging in their room? Have we gone to the website and gotten information for them? Do we periodically change pictures and make sure that they can go to the local art galleries? What, as activity professionals, do we do to adapt their environment to meet their interests?

Are we using the Activities Assessment tool to it's fullest potential? Are we just repeating the information that can be found in other sections in the chart? Are we really looking into a residents life or just recording information because we "HAVE TO"??? Does our staff know why they are doing this? Do we use these assessments to plan activities or are they gathering dust in the charts?

Are we using all the resources we have to meet the residents needs? If a resident came to your facility tomorrow with late stage dementia, wandered and had a social history of riding horses what would you do? Who would you contact? Where would you look for a place to take him/her to see horses or how would you go about getting them a ride on a horse? Would you get movies about horses? Would you get pictures or magazines? Are there resources that you would look for? How about a resident that Ballroom danced?

See the Activities Assessment is not just a piece of documentation that "HAS TO GET DONE" it's a document that should be the key to a residents soul. It should be the key to the soul of the activities department.