Life enrichment: more than just games
Wednesday February 20, 2008 -- Deron Hamel
The life enrichment department at Afton Park Place Long-Term Care Community was on a mission in early February to promote the important role recreational activities play in the lives of residents in long-term care homes.

Feb. 3-9 marked Therapeutic Recreation Awareness Week, a national campaign to educate the public about how recreational activities promote physical, emotional and cognitive well-being.

This is especially true in life enrichment departments across the long-term care sector, where staff members work tirelessly to ensure that every program created has some type of benefit to residents.

Therapeutic recreation includes all aspects of programming. This includes — but is not limited to — exercise classes, music therapy and arts-and-crafts classes.

“Every program has a therapeutic value,” says Vicki Di Giovanni, manager of life enrichment at the Sarnia long-term care home.

“(Life enrichment) is not just fun and games — we do have to assess each resident that comes into the nursing home, we do have to develop their individualized interventions and we plan, implement and evaluate the programs.”

For her part, Di Giovanni, says the department focused on trying to educate the home’s staff. This included putting an information article in the corporate newsletter that was published at the end of January. The article explained what therapeutic recreation is and the process used in long-term care.

The newsletter reached the more than 1,000 employees at the Steeves & Rozema Group, which owns the home.

To promote therapeutic recreation in the home, staff members created a large display board promoting the concept, which included pictures of residents participating in programs offered by the life enrichment department.

The purpose of this, notes Di Giovanni, was to educate everyone who comes into the home as to what therapeutic recreation is all about.

“Some of the benefits of therapeutic recreation that we see are improved physical health, improved cognitive abilities and there’s the increased social confidence and self-esteem,” says Di Giovanni. “There’s always a higher overall level of life satisfaction. The benefits are endless when it comes to recreation and leisure.”