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I enjoy what I do and want the residents to have fun. My administrator, director of nursing and staff like to talk about how boring and repetitive my activities are. They make  it seem like I am not doing my job. During Resident Council I discuss the activities on my calendar. We have Bingo 9 times a week and they wanted it.  What can I do to make others understand it is what the residents want? Also, it is impossible to get participation of the residents to do exercise, I have tried bribes, begging, etc. I asked in Resident Council again, and they say they do not want to exercise.. They have done exercise all their lives and now they want to relax. OMG Help !!!!!

Ughhhh, this drives me nuts too.  I always put in a box on my calendar " If there are any activities that you would like to see added to the calender please let activities know." People just do not undestand that these residents are elderly, they love bingo, it is what THEY enjoy not what we enjoy.  I have  to go through this all the time too, when it comes up to whoever ( and EVERYONE thinks they could do activites better) just professionally explain that your calendar reflects what the residents enjoy, they love bingo and want it often.  What administrators and others cannot seem to understand is that the elderly like routine, they like things at the SAME time, they like THEIR places, they hate anything starting late.  They LIKE routine. I do bingo 3 times per week and if I were to cut any of them I would have a revolt. LOL I used to have a hard time getting residents to exercise, but now I have a full room, I have a great tape that is hard to find now, but it's a seated exercise program that is mostly stretching and it is set to slow music and has a male voice cue to do the exercises.  I add at the end about 10 minutes of a little bit more difficut exercises. My residents love this program.  The tape is called "keys to life", see if you can find it and try it, also I have found that they will not come to exercise unless it has a leader in front of the class. ( me or my assistant ) It's hard, but as long as your residents are happy try to ignore the comments of the others who have no idea what they are talking about.

We all here "get it"

What are those games? They sound interesting?!

What's your population like? 

 I run bingo x6 a week-- M, W, F and Sun during the day we do regular bingo, sat we do "Special Bingo" (there will be different prizes, etc), and then Monday night we have a volunteer run bingo. I do this because my high functioning residents LIKE it. It gets great PARTICIPATION. And many of the residents that don't like other activities, come out of their room for bingo-- and isn't that our job? To get them out and stimulated? So why are we going to cap things that do that? 

I've been asked many times (MANY!) to add bingo Tues and Thurs, and I've resisited, I have however added Keno x1/week on one of those days, kinda similar concept, but it's something different then bingo so I feel comfortable adding it, instead of feeling like I just keep giving them bingo. 

- turtle

This is great, turtle. I used to get this a lot too when I was the assistant. I rarely hear it now. One of my favorite responses has been to ask the CNAs (who were usually the only ones complaining) how many people they have to worry about each day and then inform them that I have to know what every Resident in our building is doing. What activities they attend, if they come to snacks, what they do in their rooms, if they are out of the building with family or on a doctor's visit, on and on. That usually quiets them quickly.

When any other staff (be it CNAs, nurses or administrative) make comments about the resident activities, which as stated, are based on what they want, I simply ask the staff if they have any "better" ideas and offer to provide them with a time to implement and lead those activities. Its always been a quick way to get them to back off.

Take a moment and really think about your residents and the game of Bingo.  You can even do a quick survey of your residents and I bet you will find that MOST of your residents never played Bingo until they were admitted to your facility, then ask yourself why???

Most of your residents grew up and lived during a time when they had to cook, clean, garden, do canning, and raise their children and if asked, most would probably tell you that in "their time" Bingo was considered gambling.  So why now?

Two reasons:

1) Not the most important reason but, residents have limited funds.  What they have, they are spending on their trips to the beauty shop, cable TV, telephone, newspaper etc.  AND they enjoy giving little gifts to their grandchildren, family members, and staff. So when they play bingo, they have the opportunity to win prizes that they can give as gifts to those they love and care about.

2) Most important reason..... Everything in their life since admission is timelined.  They are told when to do everything.  They are told, when to go to the bathroom, when to eat, when to go to bed, when to go to activities, what to wear, when to take meds, when to go shopping, when to take a bath, when to get their hair done etc.  BINGO on the other hand is the one thing during their week that is unpredictable.  Yes, they know they are going to play, they are told how many cards they can play and how many times they can win during the activity BUT they don't know IF they are going to WIN!  It is this unexpected, the unknown that makes this game so much fun, alluring and attractive to them.

As Activity Professionals, we just need to take this concept and carry it over into all the other activities we offer in order to get more participation.  You can offer the same activities each week, but mix things up a bit by the outcome; i.e. individual play, team play, prize, no prize, big prize, little prize, snack, no snack, resident lead activity with gift for doing so, etc.  In doing so, you need to put excitement into your voice when gathering residents; ("Yea, we've done this before but I've changed things a bit and you never know what I am going to pull out of my sleeve"!; "You never know what kind of prize you might win today"; "Don't you have a grandson with a birthday coming up soon?  This is a good time to see if you can get a gift for him", "We're going to play teams today, let's see if you and I can beat the other team and be the queens today"!)  Anything you can think of to get them excited rather than just; "Mrs. Smith would you like to come and play xxxxx"?

You can do the same with an exercise group.  Run through your regular routine and end with a Marshmallow toss (bowls and marshmallows using gloves and then they get to eat the marshmallows that don't hit the floor or have extras), Goldfish races (bowls and goldfish crackers), etc. Use your imagination.  It is best to use any food item your residents don't get on a regular basis.

I hope this helps!  Remember, the unknown is what gets them to the activitiy, your enthusiasm is what keeps them coming back!

Treasa

I got both the Grab the Candy game and Lucky numbers from the Activity Connection sight.  I think Lucky Numbers is in March games.  Grab the Candy is really easy.....we have a table with 1-6 down the side and A-F along the top......residents place 10 - 15 candies, whatever amount you want, and then you call numbers such as A1.....As soon as all of their Candies are off the board they win!!!  This game is really fast and lots of fun.

Good Luck

Same thing were i used to work.  Everyday i had a daily sheet and had to read it aloud at a all staff meetiing and eveytime i used to say bingo the marketing people used to roll their eyes.  I would be afraid to say bingo because of it.  But i did played many games but people just dont understand that they love bingo.  I used to play different types of bingos like 3 layer cake bingo, 4 corners bingo, picture frame bingo, and many others i had about 20 residents and it was a successful activitie.  But i left that place already.  miss my residents.  Now were i work the boss hates bingo too but o well.  Maybe this bosses or staff dont get it.  Who do we please the staff or residents.  Also I have told myself that i have to try new things and i have it was hard because i too became routine like the residents.  But you know what if you think about it even mc donalds needs to bring out new sandwiches all the time.  And if you look at all the commercials on tv everyone is always having to bring out new things.  I know its hard but not impossible.  If you have a will there will be a way.  Keep on trying.  Like i was very against trying the wii game with the residents i thought it was a dumb thing and that the residents would hate it and omg was i wrong they embraced it and loved it.  Now i heard from other activities directiors that their residents want to come and compete with my residents.  So we will see how that goes and this experience made me realize that i too need to think of fresh ideas.  I know it is hard and it takes lots of work and that people just like to have opinions and not help.  And that now it seems that they make 1 person do the job of 2 or 3.  This companys are taking the fun of being an activities director.  Things use to be fun before i had staff to help and now the staff are over worked that they cannot possibly take on any other task like showing extra love to the elderly.

  I certainly agree that our calendars should be varied and offer all kinds of activities.  I have a full calendar with lots of different activities every day ( 5 activities a day for my assisted living residents ) But, I know with my group of residents that they simply love to play bingo.  I offer them bingo 3 times per week, since this is what they request and what they attend.  Every resident is different and every facility is different according to the population that you have at "this" time, my populations vary as new people come in and others leave or pass away.  None of us as individuals will have the same programming, it will be different and that is ok.  None of us are perfect at this, we all are constantly learning and adjusting. My residents are between 85 and 98 years of age. They are tired. It is very hard to motivate them to come to any activities, but I never stop trying and make I make sure to always stay positive and enthusiastic with them about activities. ( even when I am drop dead tired) I do not ever put "my" desires for them ahead of what they themselves want. If I want to go see say "Hunger Games" and if someone says to me, "oh that is ridiculous, you shouldn't waste your time on such stupid fiction," "you should go to the library or the book reading at the book store instead, it's so much better for you." I would laugh at them, or resent them. Just because these people are eldery does not mean that "we" know whats "best" for them, they should be able to choose their own activities that "they" enjoy. Why is this so hard for some people to understand?  The state requires in our skilled facility to do an assesment of the resident and determine what "they" like to do, and we are to try our best to provide that for them. Why would it be any different in other settings.  I just feel that we are here to make these residents lives as happy and productive as possible, we are about all that many of them have to fill their days, I just try every day to make their lives just a bit brighter.

When I started out as a fresh new recreation therapist in my facility to my surprise bingo was daily. No exceptions. My first month I set out to make things more unique and fresh and cut down on the bingo. The response? A special meeting besides the resident council that the residents had with the admin to get someone new and bingo is to be daily or else. So after a solid year we are down to 6 times a week and yes that is an accomplishment. We also play for quarters which gets to be about a 100.00 a month gone and not much left over. Prizes candy and other treats no it was to be quarters and only quarters or else. My bingo players are usually an hour early to ensure their particular place at a table so I have used this opportunity to incorporate an additional activity for the day since they are in there anyway.

About the exercise. In our facility the restorative staff work with me do exercise.  They are able to get their time incoporated into the group and we are able to help eachother and get more people down to the group for participation. They do individual stuff while I play volleyball, baseball, balloon toss etc. Then when the group is done we focus on the ones that need to walk and we work together on those people to get their time done as well. In the time I have been here that has been THE best improvement ever. PT and OT occasionally bring their person in as well if that person prefers the group setting and responds better to it.

I am an Activities Director at a facility in the south.  The residents LOVE having a Devotion each week day AM and I follow that with stretching.  I make the Devotion light and uplifing.  The stretching is EASY yet we are using our entire body.  Some mornings I have ministers come in to do a Devotion and they love that.  Each month we have a Resident Council Meeting and I ask each month ideas for our Activities.  This includes Bingo three times a week,Devotion and stretching each week day,Van Rides twice a week AND they LOVE music so I have musicians,singing groups coming many times during the week.  Did you notice NO CRAFTS.  Our residents really dislike crafts.  So,what I am saying is I listen to their likes and dislikes.  Devotion,music,van rides seem to be our main stay.  We go on wonderful outings also but these are the mainstay activities.  I believe in listening to our residents and each monthly Resident Council Meeting will give you the lead of what they want.