What Activities Can You Do in a Residential Care Home?
In a residential care home, it’s important to meet the mental and physical health needs of residents while nurturing and stimulating their mental well-being. Having a range of accessible, personalised activities available for residents to enjoy is a great way of encouraging them to participate actively while promoting high-quality care.
What Should Care Homes Consider for Activity Planning?
Although some care homes have dedicated activity coordinators, it's important to remember that everyone should take some form of responsibility for encouraging meaningful and engaging activities with all residents, whether that’s having a friendly chat, looking through photo albums together, taking a walk around the care homes grounds or feeding the birds. Other tasks to encourage residents to participate include daily tasks such as dressing and personal care, as this can also improve their levels of engagement, well being and physical independence.
The benefits of choosing a care home with a dedicated coordinator are that it allows more time and thought to go into a tailored programme. We understand that many care staff have many demands on their time with other duties that they undertake as part of their role. To decide on the best activities for each resident, the coordinator will take their time getting to know each individual and having sufficient training to fully understand what activities would be best suited to the residents and if they need any extra support to participate.
An activities coordinator is responsible for organising the majority of activities within a care home, such as calendar events and trips outside the home. They encourage residents to participate where they want to while ensuring they’re accessible and available to focus on their physical and mental health. This promotes a positive impact on our residents' lives while reducing stress.
As mentioned briefly above, when planning certain activities, it is essential to consider accessibility, such as ensuring those with limited mobility or cognitive impairments can still participate. It's important to know what hobbies and interests individuals have and their preferred participation methods. Not everyone will want to take part in group activities, so it's important to offer flexibility and make sure that what is being offered is appropriate and of interest to those who it is aimed at and not simply generic choices.
If you’re struggling to think of care home activity ideas, we have created a list of some of the most popular activities in our opinion…
Board Games and Puzzles - This activity never disappoints! Games such as dominoes, chess, noughts and crosses, card games, ring toss, scrabble and jigsaw puzzles. These activities not only bring people together within a fun, communal setting, but it has numerous benefits, such as increasing dexterity, cognitive ability, fine motor skills and memory recall, all beneficial for residents with conditions like Dementia and Parkinson’s.
Live Entertainment - An activity which is a treat to care home residents is live entertainment such as music and dance. Bringing in tribute acts or going out within the local community to watch others in shows or performances will be thoroughly enjoyed by everyone, no matter their interest or ability. This environment encourages residents to dance and sing along to the live music therefore elevating their mood. It’s also another way for residents to make new friends through social interactions and spend time with current family and friends. Singing and dancing also trigger memories, such as residents remembering their youth, bringing forward some positive emotions.
Quizzes or Bingo - Another popular activity within a care home would be quizzes or bingo, you can even put your own twist on these sorts of activities to make them more engaging, such as musical bingo for example. Additionally, brining everyone together for some friendly competition between residents is a great way to create new bonds with others in the care home or local community. Bringing people together for a bingo or quiz night will enhance the morale within your care home.
Gardening - The majority of care homes will have some green fingered residents inside, therefore it’s important to put their skills to good use in your outdoor area or gardens. Another trip idea which crosses paths with this would be visiting your local gardening centre to buy an assortment of flowers and plants. Then, taking the time to plant them and watch them blossom and grow allows residents to take pride in the end results, leading to a feeling of achievement. Gardening also has multiple health benefits, including better balance, reducing falls or slips, and strengthening joints and muscles. If their gardens are big enough, residents can also take part in and play a range of garden games such as bowls, golf, giant chess and croquet.
Sensory Activities - An activity we recommend that would be highly beneficial within your activities plans would be sensory classes. Some examples of this could be blindfolded tasting competitions, flower arranging, finger painting, knitting, hand massages and even head massages with some essential oils. Some care homes also have specific sensory rooms full of wonderful lights and textured objects. There are many benefits of sensory activities, such as concentration, a more relaxed state of mind, boosted moods and increased cognitive function and motor neuron functions. Sensory activities are great for those with certain health conditions like sensory impairments or Dementia.
Arts & Crafts - Arts and crafts is a broader activity, which means creating different sessions based on your resident's needs and interests. This style of activity is often popular within all care homes due to residents using their creativity and imagination to create something unique either alone or with the help of the staff, it’s also an excellent way to encourage social interaction with residents as well as giving them the opportunity to use their creative skills. Some of the benefits of this activity would be increased concentration, developing creative skills and reminiscence. Even if residents do not participate, they can sit back and reflect on crafts they made during their youth, whilst spending time with other residents.
Exercise Classes - As we all know, physical activities play a vital role in staying healthy as we grow older. You could include gentle exercise sessions within your activities programme such as dance classes, pilates, tai chi, guided meditations, walks or jogs. It’s measured that 14% of older adults would say walking or jogging is their favourite activity and it’s the perfect excuse to get out and about, exploring your local area. Besides the obvious health benefits that come with fresh air and exercise, older people can have an increase in their moods, balance, and strength and the improvement of cognitive functions. Exercise can be made into a fun activity for residents, supporting different abilities to ensure that everyone can take part and take it at their own pace whilst enjoying it.
Our Activities Programme at Etive House Care Home
Here at Etive House Care Home in Oban, we offer a brilliant activities programme for all of our residents to get involved in, we always find out what are residents interests are to pick activities best suited to them. Some of these activities include trips to the local garden centre, pet therapy, arts and crafts, live entertainment, baking, decorating and so much more. Even when no planned care home activities are going on there is always something going on within our home. We have two house cats; Ginger and Holly who the residents love, they get cuddled and played with all the time. Our care home is a warm, homely environment, in which all our residents love.
As well as our activities programme, we have a variety of facilities for our residents to enjoy such as our hair and nail salon, library for book club and in-house cinema. Here at Etive House Care Home, we offer an all inclusive care package which means all events, activities and excursions are included in our fees, helping to support residents in living in an enriched and varied lifestyle, whilst maintaining current relationships. If you are interested in getting more information about Etive House Care Home for you or your family member and the high quality care we provide, please get in contact with us.
