Improving Quality of Life for Older People in Long-Stay Care ...

Table 11.4: Making activities work208Making activities workI have two girls that come into help us. They’re in doinga work experience coursefor a year, on-the-job training,which is very useful to us.And what they do is theycome in in the morningsand they make the beds.That frees up that time forthe nursing staff to do otherthings and they have felt thebenefit of that. Then in theafternoon the two girls,and they are wonderfulgirls, they do some socialactivities with the patients.(PK1 RN02, Public)Two days a week we haveschoolboys to come up fromtransition year and theydo activities on the men’swards in the afternoons withus from two to four; that’sWednesday and Thursday.(GN2 AT01, Public)The difficulties of making activities workThere’s not enough activity. There is an activitiesunit here in the last couple of years and there’s careattendants, a nurse and a ward sister. We’d havea few patients who love singing and you arrange forthe activities but they never turn up. There should beactivities on every ward. Today we had Sonas. I’dnever seen Sonas up here before. (GN1 CA2, Public)They’ll come into the ward and have some activities.They mostly sing songs. They have their exercisewhich is the hands.Int: And do most of the residents participate in that?No, it’s difficult because our patients who areimmobile cannot, they can’t really participate. Onlythose who are with it enough who can actually join in.So for patients now, some of them would also refuseas well. So for this morning, for 28 patients there wasonly, I think eight of them joined. (GN RN02, Public)No, they don’t (have enough activities). We do theexercises over there every day, you know, and theyall just sit like that. Sometimes, then, they have abad mix of maybe too much dementia and then thereis a resident who is dying of cancer. We’re kind ofexpected to amuse them all. We’re like, we reallyshould be carers and have other people for amusingthem, but we do everything. (YW5 RN1, Private)I think there could be more done. I think games andactivities – it’s just that we’re very busy and if therewas extra people on, they could come in and do justactivities or whatever with them. (PK2 H CA01, Public)Many resident respondents stated that they did not participate in the activitiesoffered because they were not interested in large group activities, in the activitiesoffered, or felt they were mentally at a different level to others. In many facilitiesan activities schedule for the week was in place but it was evident that in somefacilities the activities were not focused on the residents’ particular interests.Improving Quality of Life for Older People in Long-Stay Care Settings in Ireland