trixiedg

Not sure if this the place to post this or not but here it goes. I know how hard it is to find just the right music for the occasion. I was searching my App Store the other day, actually looking for an alarm clock, and came across Songza. If you have wifi or any Internet connection, you can stream just about any kind of music you can imagine. Its free and there are no commercials. It's kind of like pandora but no interruptions. It has been a great find for me so I thought I would share.

I desperately need some ideas for one of my residents. He yells out oh me or help almost constantly when he is awake. When he is awake, he wanders while he yells out which upsets the whole nursing home. The only thing I have found that works is to put music on for him, park him next to me in the office where he can either hold my hand or be touched the moment he starts yelling out. While this is fine as long as I'm sitting still, but that is not very often for very long. He is alert at times but falls asleep very easily for short periods of time. I tried playing checkers with him but he dozed off after two moves and that was the end of that. It's difficult to have him in any type of group as he disturbs the others and some can be a little rude to him as a result. I am very worried about him as he used to be one of my very alert residents but his Alzheimer's is taking its toll on him now. I would appreciate any suggestions at all, large or small, anything that might help.

I have a new assistant starting Monday and I have never had to go through the training process before. She is very young with no experience in LTC or anything else. She is very excited about her new job and I don't want to overwhelm her on the first day. I would like some ideas on how to get started if anyone has any.

Does anyone know the F-Tags that apply to HIPAA or breaking confidentiality? I am finishing up my MEPAP course and this is one of the ones I seem to be hung up on. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

I have been thinking about purchasing this game, but I see that it is rather expensive($70.00). Is it really worth the money. I think it would be a good thing to have, especially since my residents think bingo is the only "real" activity there is. I feel like they would enjoy it and it would be educational at the same time.

You know, I had not even thought about the fact that St. Paddy's Day and Easter are basically a week apart. We do Mardi Gras here, so we will have Valentine's Day and Mardi Gras a week apart this month. That will be two months in a row for me to have to plan and fund two events during the month. Well, I guess it may just have to be fundraiser time again. This is why I love what I do. Plan Plan! Party Party!

Our state surveyors finally came on Wednesday and they exited today before 11:00am. We received a deficiency free survey!!!! I have to say this has been the best survey team we have ever had. They were nice and seemed to enjoy being with us this week. I actually was not nervous talking to them. They said the residents really bragged on the activities during the resident council meeting, which made me feel really good. Wow what a way to celebrate National Activity Professionals Week!

I am kind of like the person in the quote in the previous post. Celebrating with a builing full of surveyors, yippee! I guess the party will have to wait. Only thing is, I'll have to celebrate by myself because my assistant is going back to the floor as a CNA on Monday. Oh well, I guess thats how it goes sometimes. Happy Activity Professionals Week to everyone!!!!

This is not really related to the original post but I just wanted to know what everyones role as an AD is in the QA meetings. We have our QA meeting once a month. All department heads attend and our medical director attends also. Most of us call it our eatin' meetin' because all we do is eat and sit and talk a while except for the DON, administrator, and MD. They take care of going over how many infections and so on we had since the last meeting. I don't really have any input into anything unless they have someone they are wanting to admit from the hospital, but certainly not about activities. In my MEPAP class, there is a question about the role of the activity department in the QA meeting. Was wondering if anyone else has any input at QA.

Update on my little lady with Alzheimer's. Today I may have had a breakthrough with her. She had been crying for much of the day, and a CNA had taken her to her room to put her back to bed but got delayed doing something else. I was sitting in my office working on progress notes and I could hear her non-stop crying. I decided I would give one more try today to see what I could do. I grabbed my favorite Christmas CD with all the good old songs and a portable CD player with headphones. I started the music and began massaging her hands but it did not help at all. So I decided to try a foot massage. Her feet were cold so I warmed them up with a warm cloth and began rubbing her feet with lotion. When I began warming the first foot, she stopped crying, only whimpering every now and then. Before I knew it, she had become silent and was just calmly sitting, watching me. As I was working, the CNA walked into the room, amazed that she was so quiet. We were both amazed when she looked at the CNA and said "Good morning, how are you?". Once I was done and was about to leave, she reached out for my hand and said "thank you". She has said very little for a long while now, so this was really different for her. These are the things that make it worthwhile working in this profession. It only took 30 minutes to change the rest of her day. I hope this will be something that will work well more than just this one time. I will probably be trying this on some of my other folks as well. I guess they might like a good foot massage as much as I do.

I have tried playing old church hymns on CD for her, also old Christmas songs, but it didn't seem to help. Her daughter visited a while back and was able to get her to sing along with her, but her mental status has declined since then. I have also tried doing sensory stim with scented lotions, massaging her hands and arms. Her crying does seem to slow a little, only occurring intermittently during the visit with the lotion, but I can't have someone with her all of the time. She is on bed rest right now r/t other reasons, so she really has little stimulation other than my visits and care staff. We have debated meds for depression but the family is unsure whether to trade crying episodes for her being more mentally alert. She recently had some of her meds reduced which improved her mental status and ability/desire to eat but the crying started. The crying episodes have become almost constant now, so I believe I vote for starting low dose meds to try and find middle ground.

My heart goes out to you. As some of the others have already said, not all care centers or activity directors are like that. The burn out rate in our profession is one of the highest. I have a lot of the same problems that you are having but I am the director and it is my assistant that is giving me the headaches. She will be returning to the floor as a CNA soon so at least I do have that to look forward to. My administrator keeps telling me to just hang in there, so that is what I'm trying to do although I feel as though I am at the end of my rope hanging onto the threads. Mostly all she is doing now is the minimum to get by, complaining about what she has to do, and telling the residents that most of the activities are a waste of her time. I wish I could find someone similar to you who is motivated to make things the best they can be and is not afraid of a little hard work to make things the top of the line. I would love to have someone to add input on the programs that are scheduled. There are so many times when I run out of new ideas or just don't have the time to really think it all through when I plan the calendar. I find myself scheduling events that, when the time comes to actually do them, I don't have time to do them. My time is stretched so thin that when I'm talking to someone I am walking away at the same time I'm talking to them. If I'm sitting still just taking a breather, I feel guilty because there is so much to do. I have not been able to do the decorating at the care center this year mostly because of having to do paperwork and about a million other things. Being able to decorate the nursing home is one of the things I have always taken pride in, but not this year. The decorating has already been done by someone else. I'm glad they did get it done because without them, it would not have been done at all. Christmas has always been my favorite time of the year because of the decorating and the spirit of the season, but I just have not been able to get into it this year, at least not yet. Sorry about the long, drawn out post. I really do hope that you can find a little peace in your life.

I have a resident with Alzheimer's that had basically stopped communicating. She was taken off of some of her meds to see if she would improve. She is now more alert and will talk a little, occasionally getting out a complete statement. The only drawback is she cries almost constantly. She sometimes has tears, but mostly crying, sobbing sounds. When asked why she is crying she says "I don't know" as if she didn't realize she was crying in the first place. I have her on my in room program right now because her crying disturbs others in groups. I need some suggestions for things I can do for her in room activity program and also some ideas for a care plan. It is practically impossible to determine the reason for her crying. The amount of stimulation has not had any noticed effect on her (noisy, quiet, crowded, alone). Thanks for any help you may be able to give.

I wish someone would offer the class in Mississippi. I would love to become certified. We really don't have a lot of opportunities to learn more about our furthering our profession in our state.

Thanks for the tips. My assistant and I were kind of thrown into our positions. I've worked along with activities for years but she has not. She has had no training but we are planning on getting her some. We have very little resources for training in our area, not even a state association. It is hard for me to get her to understand why I do the things I do and schedule the things I schedule. The schedule is pretty tight and I feel bad because I know it's alot to do in a day. I have to run the activity department and social services and do the admissions. My daily schedule is so unpredictable that I am unable to commit to any activity being the activity I am responsible for. I just have to fit them in when I can. You may be correct when you say the assistant gets the dirty work, but I would trade my responsiblities with my assistant any day. While she was on vacation a while back, I realized how much I love being with my residents and having fun with them. Then it was back to the hours upon hours of paperwork, sometimes I think it's enough to make a person go blind. I don't know what all your director does, but if it were not for paperwork, meetings, supply runs, and having to fix everybody's problems I might would have a little time to breathe. I usually get stuck with what no one else wanted to do. Do you ever get home at night and just wish you could sit down and have someone ask you "now what can I do for you"? I hope things improve for you and know that not every place has big problems but no place is perfect. I figure you already know that though. Good luck and don't give up just yet.

I am having difficulty with my assistant. Over the last year she has threatened to quit twice and her attitude has been steadily going downhill. She has not spoken to me or even made eye contact with me at all today. She called in yesterday for unknown reasons and tends to make a habit of this on a regular basis. She was disrespectful to me a couple of times last week. Nothing major but still uncalled for. I have also heard her make inappropriate comments to some of the residents, some comments could be taken seriously the wrong way and should have never been said under any circumstances. She has made her own hours and does a lot of sitting around wasting time between groups. She complains that I just have too much scheduled. There are days when things are pretty tight, but I was able to do all of it by myself while she was on vacation. Write progress notes, do MDS's, care plans, and do a complete admit package on two new residents and admit them plus all of the scheduled activities. I need to counsel with her but I have no idea of what to do. I get so flustered anytime I talk to her about anything because I never know what to expect from her and then I just feel like all I've done is make an idiot of myself. I know I cannot let this continue but where do I begin. I want to be a good supervisor but I don't want to be a pushover either, although a pushover is what I have been. If anyone can give me any advice on what to do, I would appreciate it.

At our home we have a restorative nurse who has one restorative CNA. They do all of the restorative exercises once the resident is discharged from therapy. Our activity department does not do any of this. I don't know if there are any actual qualifications for being able to help out with restorative but all of our staff that are in that department were trained by therapy.

I'm an AD with one assistant. I have been at this for almost a year now and I feel like I still have no idea what to do when it comes to supervising an assistant. I've always been on my own. If you were able to choose your director, what would you look for or want? Also, what are your daily responsibilities? I'm trying to figure out what things I can do to improve my department.

I have a question that concerns me and was wondering if anyone could help. Here is my problem. I am the social worker, admissions coordinator, and activity director at a 60 bed facility. I have one assistant that basically does most of the scheduled activities. With all of the paper work requirements and my very unpredictable schedule, I am able to spend very little time actually doing activities and many times even helping out or looking in on things going on. Sometimes I find myself scheduling activities only I can do just so I can be with my residents. I know the paper work has to be done and I have resolved myself to the fact that this is just the way life is going to be for me and I'm ok with that. My concern is will it be a problem with state that I'm rarely actually in activities. I do all of the planning, I know what things are going on, and I am on the hall often. I just wonder if my presence is required at least during part of each activity or is it ok that my assistant handles things.

I am in need of a consultant to review my records and other things that a consultant usually does before our state survey. I am located in south central Mississippi. I have been searching for a consultant and have had no real luck yet. I only know of one in my area but he is usually hard to get and often busy teaching the MEPAP. If anyone has any information or how I may go about finding a consultant, please let me know.

I have a couple of new residents that are short term rehab. One is pretty much independent recovering from surgery and is focused on his rehab and returning home. He does not participate in group programming unless it is the exercise group that therapy does. He is friendly and not withdrawn. Thought about having therapy suggest items that the activity dept. could provide for him to keep in his room that would compliment some of the things they are working with him on, but I'm not sure if I can get the items here before he is discharged. The other resident is recovering from a CVA. He is usually in bed unless he is in therapy. His family is very supportive and at his bedside all day, often more than one at a time. We check on him and his family regularly to make sure they don't need anything. We don't want to interfere with their time together but what do I care plan that we are doing or can do for him.

I'm glad you brought that up about the omsbudsman attending the council meetings. I had mentioned that same thing to my adm. Those who wish to attend the council meetings that are not residents are supposed to be by invitation only or by request by that person and then the request is approved by the council. My adm. agreed and said if the attendance of the omsbudsman becomes a problem, she will take care of letting her know that her presence is not warranted just because she is the omsbudsman. Our omsbudsman is new and has yet to be trained properly and seems to want to earn brownie points at her headquarters. She has only recently started knocking on the residents doors before she invites herself in. Her being at the council meetings, to me anyway, kind of voids the biggest part of why the council exists, to bring up issues before the council and then to the appropriate department for correction or investigation, giving the residents a voice. With the omsbudsman stepping in before the nursing home is even made aware of a problem or concern, why even bother with a council. (except for the fact it's a requirement) Her presence makes the residents nervous and then no one wants to say anything, again negating the whole purpose. They all just sit there looking at me like "what are we supposed to do". I know I have to be patient with our omsbudsman because she has not been trained, or at least it seems that way. She has been doing this since March or April, how long does it take to learn the ropes?

Thanks for all the tips. Things have been better. I have reduced bingo to twice a week, substituting other games or programs for the other times bingo was scheduled. We also now play freebie games every Wednesday and Friday afternoon. This seems to have helped them appreciate the paying games more. Reducing bingo any further would be difficult as bingo is their favorite. We are using different larger bingo cards now and many seem to only want one, which is good. Giving out tickets is a good idea and I may use it for some of our other games. The residents really use the money they win from bingo. When we go on our outings, they use their bingo money to buy the things they want from Walmart or other places. Thanks again everyone.

Hello Rosemarie. Are you the same person that I read about on the activity director community message board. If so, I had been wondering how your new job was going. Welcome to the world of activities.

We are planning on doing a haunted pirate ship theme. We had a haunted hoedown last year.