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Activities for a 24yr old resident


TeamAbbey

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Yeah, you read that right. My heart breaks for this family who is admitting their child. Resident is male, 24, total care and mostly bed bound. He cannot sit up at all, can only lie down, and only has one good eye. Resident is non verbal and does not have use of any apendage. What in the world am I going to do? I've got to be able to tell this boy's mother something, so she doesn't think he'll just lay in the bed and stare at the wall all the time. Please help if any of you have any ideas! Monday is my deadline, so I'll be checking in all weekend.

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Oh wow, thats awful. I had a young patient once (early 30s), couldn't move, mostly stayed in bed or geri-chair. We just drew on her past interests, she was really into bob marley and nature and traveling, so we would play music for her project nature scenes on the wall or ceiling (depending on which way she was turned) also would do aroma therapy and hand massages.

 

For such a young boy I would also assume family would be very involved and come to talk to him.

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Hi

This makes your heart break. We forget how lucky we all are. I agree with the other reply that you should for sure play music for him. Ask what his other interest are & maybe make a mobil to hang above him when he is bed I.E. if he likes fishing use related items to make the mobil. Could he understand a book? If so read to him or get books on tape. I would decorate his room in lots of color to stimulate his mind & be sure to change it pretty often. Take him outside in a geri chair for walks. If he can have it give him ice cream, I had a yound man with head traum, he loved ice cream, music, Stephen King, going outside & cars. You don't say if he can talk or how orientated he is. If he can talk then playing games is always a good thing. There are games that you can place things on forehead & control using your eyes. You will have to do some searching on this. Also set up a "Big Brothers Club" ask some of the men from your facility to go by his room on set days & visit with him or play a game whatever his mental ability will allow. Good luck Keep us updated OK.

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Hi

This makes your heart break. We forget how lucky we all are. I agree with the other reply that you should for sure play music for him. Ask what his other interest are & maybe make a mobil to hang above him when he is bed I.E. if he likes fishing use related items to make the mobil. Could he understand a book? If so read to him or get books on tape. I would decorate his room in lots of color to stimulate his mind & be sure to change it pretty often. Take him outside in a geri chair for walks. If he can have it give him ice cream, I had a yound man with head traum, he loved ice cream, music, Stephen King, going outside & cars. You don't say if he can talk or how orientated he is. If he can talk then playing games is always a good thing. There are games that you can place things on forehead & control using your eyes. You will have to do some searching on this. Also set up a "Big Brothers Club" ask some of the men from your facility to go by his room on set days & visit with him or play a game whatever his mental ability will allow. Good luck Keep us updated OK.

 

thank you all. The young man cannot talk, he really can't communicate much at all, there's sort of an eye wiggle and a mouth movement and that is his only response to stimuli. He also can't eat at all NPO, with a g tube. I'm sure the staff will provide lots of stimuli via visits as we are all deeply affected by this family. His roomate is great, I can only hope he will show an interest in him. But the complete lack of back and forth communication will be a struggle for sure. I can bring him to all activities of course so he can see what everyone is doing, but we have no idea of his cognition. I'm off to research his diseases.

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You all are right, this is heart breaking. At my former facility, I had three young women under 35. The youngest was 23....she had been in a car on a high speed chase (her boyfriend was running from the cops) and he wrecked into a light pole. She survived (he didn't) but, needless to say, her life was completely changed. She had been in a coma for over 3 months so when she awoke her brain was stretched like an accordian. It was heartbreaking to watch her parents and her toddler child visit daily. She loved to listen to music so I did that very often. She also enjoyed hand massages and aromatherapy. Like everyone else said, I would definately try music, but also other sensory stimulation things such as a hand massage with good lotion or scented pods you could place under his nose.

 

I love the idea of a "big brother" program...I'm sure his family would like that as well!

 

Good luck!

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Yeah, you read that right. My heart breaks for this family who is admitting their child. Resident is male, 24, total care and mostly bed bound. He cannot sit up at all, can only lie down, and only has one good eye. Resident is non verbal and does not have use of any apendage. What in the world am I going to do? I've got to be able to tell this boy's mother something, so she doesn't think he'll just lay in the bed and stare at the wall all the time. Please help if any of you have any ideas! Monday is my deadline, so I'll be checking in all weekend.

 

I would really ask the family all about his likes and dislikes. Music is always a plus. Anything that stimulates the senses. Also a picture book of family members that you can sit and look at with him and talk about the family members. I hope this helps

Amylyn

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I agree with all the ideas posted. You are truly faced with a challenge and are going to have to ask the family a lot of questions. Music is a very good tool to use for in room stimulation but as we all know, and please no one take offense to this; no one wants to listen to music every waking moment for days, weeks, and months on end. When you find out what type of music this young man enjoys, you are probably going to end up getting a handful of CD's to use and they will get old really quick if you don't have something else to use.

 

From experience, HE IS IN THERE! He knows what is going on! Unless you know for sure his hearing is gone, he hears what is going on around him! I have a gentleman right now that has been at our facility for 40 plus years because of a truck accident that left him with a TBI. He now has a dx of Persistive Vegitative State because he has declined so much over the years. He is on MD ordered Bed Rest and only gets out of bed once a week for his bath due to spontanious fractures (severe osteoporosis). When he first came to the facility, he was much like your young man, unable to verbilize, non-ambulatory, etc. but he does have vision in both eyes.

 

We read to him and many times, he just lays there as if to be looking past us. Once I was reading a story to him about a construction job, where the men were moving dirt to build a large corporation building. I looked up at him and there was a tear coming down his face. This gentleman used to work driving trucks and equipment in a stone quarry. My point is, there is no way to know for sure; but I am a firm believer that your young man is aware of what is going on, maybe not everything but one little thing can or may trigger a reaction, especially since you say that his eye wiggles.

 

So with that said, speak to the family, find out if he liked to read. If he did, read those types of stories to him. If he didn't find out what he liked to watch on TV. If he liked comedies, history, mysteries or whatever, go to your local library and get those types of story lines on audio books. If he watched comedies or sit-coms on TV, get humor audio books. Unless you are in a larger town or city, most libraries don't have a huge selection of audio books so get them through inter-library loan.

 

In doing this you can inter-change the books with the music. Also, decorating his room with his interests, sports posters, cars, musical groups, a lot of these you can get off the internet for free with a little searching. You can also go to the toy department and get a glow-in-the-dark solar system with planets & stars to put on his ceiling (something to look at instead of just ceiling tiles). Put them up with the poster-tack, the stuff that looks like bubble gum, then you can take it down and move it periodically to make it look different. If you can't find the solar system, put a poster on the ceiling and change that periodically.

 

As everyone else said, hand/arm massage with lotion. Gentle touch like this when accepting (he'll pull away when he doesn't want it or not feeling well) because he's going to need to know he is loved!

 

Hope this helps! and Bless you for all that you do!

Ella

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  • 3 weeks later...

Yeah, you read that right. My heart breaks for this family who is admitting their child. Resident is male, 24, total care and mostly bed bound. He cannot sit up at all, can only lie down, and only has one good eye. Resident is non verbal and does not have use of any apendage. What in the world am I going to do? I've got to be able to tell this boy's mother something, so she doesn't think he'll just lay in the bed and stare at the wall all the time. Please help if any of you have any ideas! Monday is my deadline, so I'll be checking in all weekend.

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  • 1 month later...

Just wanted to check in and thank you all for your kind words and insight. The only thing he seems to like so far is people, so we all make sure he attends every activity, the staff on his hall have fallen in love with him, and his mom comes twice daily every day. His entire etended family visits often, it's all going pretty well. Thanks again!

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There is a tremendous amount of assistive technology which is underutilised in our field, partially because of cost perceptions but mostly because of lack of knowledge.

 

http://www.eyegaze.com/ & http://www.enablemart.com/ for example. The slightest of movements or eye movement can control a computer or specially adapted fixtures, there are even 'brainwave' computers which respond to the patients blood flow and brain patterns: brain computer interface.

 

If you are in a city you may be able to get a local medical technical department or company come to visit your patient and become a sponsor to design equipment specifically for him.

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