Puzzled

[blumby 0]

HI....my name is janice and I am a cna at a small facility. We have a AD/SS director with 1 helper. Problem is neither one do much of anything. The activities they have seem to be aimed more for the assisited living people while the bulk of our residented are forgotten about. There really are no activities for the nursing residents. I have my AD/SS certification and would LOVE to work in that dept. but the facility I work at does not seem to realize how important activities are to their residents. The state surveys don't seem to care about it either. If they did we'd get cited for "lack of" but we come through with no mention of any problem. This really puzzels me. Anyone have any ideas. I do what I can with and for the residents but as a cna I have my other duties to do so I don't have the time to spend with them. This really bothers me but I don't know how to fix it and I don't have the ability to ignore it like everybody else does there. Sorry about that rant.....maybe they just don't think they could do anything to make it better.

[yunakitty 2]

It's great that you care so much about the residents. I've always been taught that activities are the responsibility of the whole facility. Obviously, that doesn't mean you should neglect your own job to do theirs; the actual "activities" dept should be organizing and supplying everything, and doing the bulk of the activities.

 

If you want to impress your superiors, I would offer to do some small activities yourself. Like, "Would it be okay if we could bring everyone in the living room right after lunch, and I'll put in a DVD and paint all their nails while we watch it?" That's the kind of activity that even if you have to get pulled away to do your CNA work, it still keeps going, and you can come back in and start up the nail painting again. Or offer to bake cookies (the easy break and bake kind) at a certain time every week. You can pop those in the oven and set the timer. Once it's tradition, even housekeeping would know to take the cookies out if you got stuck in a residents' room.

 

Those kinds of things will really endear you to not only the management and activities dept, but to the residents as well. And if a time comes when they need another activity staff, you'd be a shoe in for it. As for the supplies, you request them from activities. Same goes for anything else you might want - popcorn, certain board games, etc. Everyone will really appreciate that you are looking out for the residents.

 

I'll tell you though, from the AD side of it, I hear the same complaint about myself that I "never do anything with the residents," (which is so far from the truth) so I tend to have the benefit of the doubt for other AD's. There is so much we are expected to do in a day; meetings with other staff, meetings with family, making newsletters (which can be a full time job because just as soon as you get it done, everything falls apart and you have to change everything around!), trying to get and manage volunteers, researching new activities, ordering supplies and orchestrating big events, documentation of activities, and many other small things that all add up, in addition to the actual activities! I know that the residents are the most important, and if I could be on that floor with them all the time, I would. But all that other stuff has to be done, and it's just me and my assistant who comes in on my two days off a week, and very rarely if I have a huge activity planned.

 

So, remember that since you are so busy, you may not be seeing all the things they do with the residents. You can't even go by the calendar board; it may seem empty for your skilled residents, but if they are lower functioning your AD may be doing a lot of 1:1 things with people in their rooms. You can't really schedule those things, so they aren't reflected on the calendar.

 

Also, do they ever include your higher functioning skilled residents in AL activities? I have two skilled residents that do everything skilled does AND everything AL does in addition, like lunch outings, daily walking club, and parties for AL.

 

It just aggravates me when a staff member that knows nothing about what I do gets "bothered" by a wandering resident, and brings them to my office when I'm trying to do one of the 20 things I have piled up, and whines, "Mrs. So and so is borrrred. Can't you find something for them to do?" My response, which I have to bite back, is "Can't YOU find something for them to do?" Activities cannot possibly be there to field every single restless moment a resident might have. We do our best to provide a well balanced menu of programs, but there are going to be times in between when someone is bored. That's when you crack open the activity cabinet and set them up with a puzzle, or a movie, or folding towels- whatever suits that particular person. It only takes a couple of minutes to set up an independent activity for a resident; the same amount of time it takes these people to find me and pawn the "problem" off on me.

 

Also, most residents don't need to be stimulated constantly. It can actually be more detrimental, as it wears them out. I had a former DON who nagged me to have a nonstop activity calendar, because "Then they SLEEP HARD." (and therefore it's easier for nursing, right?) But do we really want to exhaust these poor people? It's a fine line.

[blumby 0]

It's great that you care so much about the residents. I've always been taught that activities are the responsibility of the whole facility. Obviously, that doesn't mean you should neglect your own job to do theirs; the actual "activities" dept should be organizing and supplying everything, and doing the bulk of the activities.

 

If you want to impress your superiors, I would offer to do some small activities yourself. Like, "Would it be okay if we could bring everyone in the living room right after lunch, and I'll put in a DVD and paint all their nails while we watch it?" That's the kind of activity that even if you have to get pulled away to do your CNA work, it still keeps going, and you can come back in and start up the nail painting again. Or offer to bake cookies (the easy break and bake kind) at a certain time every week. You can pop those in the oven and set the timer. Once it's tradition, even housekeeping would know to take the cookies out if you got stuck in a residents' room.

 

Those kinds of things will really endear you to not only the management and activities dept, but to the residents as well. And if a time comes when they need another activity staff, you'd be a shoe in for it. As for the supplies, you request them from activities. Same goes for anything else you might want - popcorn, certain board games, etc. Everyone will really appreciate that you are looking out for the residents.

 

I'll tell you though, from the AD side of it, I hear the same complaint about myself that I "never do anything with the residents," (which is so far from the truth) so I tend to have the benefit of the doubt for other AD's. There is so much we are expected to do in a day; meetings with other staff, meetings with family, making newsletters (which can be a full time job because just as soon as you get it done, everything falls apart and you have to change everything around!), trying to get and manage volunteers, researching new activities, ordering supplies and orchestrating big events, documentation of activities, and many other small things that all add up, in addition to the actual activities! I know that the residents are the most important, and if I could be on that floor with them all the time, I would. But all that other stuff has to be done, and it's just me and my assistant who comes in on my two days off a week, and very rarely if I have a huge activity planned.

 

So, remember that since you are so busy, you may not be seeing all the things they do with the residents. You can't even go by the calendar board; it may seem empty for your skilled residents, but if they are lower functioning your AD may be doing a lot of 1:1 things with people in their rooms. You can't really schedule those things, so they aren't reflected on the calendar.

 

Also, do they ever include your higher functioning skilled residents in AL activities? I have two skilled residents that do everything skilled does AND everything AL does in addition, like lunch outings, daily walking club, and parties for AL.

 

It just aggravates me when a staff member that knows nothing about what I do gets "bothered" by a wandering resident, and brings them to my office when I'm trying to do one of the 20 things I have piled up, and whines, "Mrs. So and so is borrrred. Can't you find something for them to do?" My response, which I have to bite back, is "Can't YOU find something for them to do?" Activities cannot possibly be there to field every single restless moment a resident might have. We do our best to provide a well balanced menu of programs, but there are going to be times in between when someone is bored. That's when you crack open the activity cabinet and set them up with a puzzle, or a movie, or folding towels- whatever suits that particular person. It only takes a couple of minutes to set up an independent activity for a resident; the same amount of time it takes these people to find me and pawn the "problem" off on me.

 

Also, most residents don't need to be stimulated constantly. It can actually be more detrimental, as it wears them out. I had a former DON who nagged me to have a nonstop activity calendar, because "Then they SLEEP HARD." (and therefore it's easier for nursing, right?) But do we really want to exhaust these poor people? It's a fine line.

I understand the demands that are put on you. When I say our AD and her assistant are not doing anything I mean it. They are hardly ever there. The AD is disabled and uses a walker and sits at her desk sorting candy into different bowls then complaines how hard it is and the assistant is more involved with her personal projects than her job. Any time there is an activity going on the aides have organized it. And yes we run into the age old battle of nursing procedures and activities butting heads. As soon as lunch is over the procedure is to potty and lay everyone down. This is "repositioning" to prevent skin issues. If anything is done differently the charge nurses freak!! They don't handle change very well at all....Most of our residents sit and sleep in their wheelchairs except for when we're potting them. Unfortunately most of our residents are in the advanced stages of AD and other debilitating diseases so its a challange for us. But we care so much we keep on trying to do whatever we can.

[yunakitty 2]

Wow, I didn't realize they were really so bad. That is bad! Well, you can always put in an anonymous complaint or something to get some attention drawn to the problem. Are they just not putting anything on the calendar, or do they put things and not do them? (Or the infamous, - glance around the floor, "Nope, nobody wants to play bingo!" and scuffle off before anyone says anything!) Because if they are putting things on the calendar and not actually doing them, you can and should report that. It's not fair to the residents.

 

You sound like a great employee. I wish you would come work at my facility! Ha, I actually need a part time activities assistant. Are you in coastal Georgia?

[blumby 0]

Wow, I didn't realize they were really so bad. That is bad! Well, you can always put in an anonymous complaint or something to get some attention drawn to the problem. Are they just not putting anything on the calendar, or do they put things and not do them? (Or the infamous, - glance around the floor, "Nope, nobody wants to play bingo!" and scuffle off before anyone says anything!) Because if they are putting things on the calendar and not actually doing them, you can and should report that. It's not fair to the residents.

 

You sound like a great employee. I wish you would come work at my facility! Ha, I actually need a part time activities assistant. Are you in coastal Georgia?

I wish I was in Georgia, we're suppose to be getting a snow storm here in Kansas tomorrow. 4 to 6 inches, YUK!!! I'm ready for spring!!! They do have activities for the assisted living residents but they don't for the nursing care residents. Oh sure they'll plunk them down with some crayons & coloring book or a magazine that they can't see to read but thats about all. We just had our yearly survey and I swear I don't know how the facility gets by without getting dinged for no activities...unless there is alot of doctored reports. I know our AD & assistant attend careplan meetings & I know some of the reports their suppose to be filling out but I never see them doing it. It just seems like even the State surveyers didn't care either. I guess I'll just keep on picking up their slack.