PreK Activities

[jberdahl]

Okay, so i know y'all have lots to say about the crappy activities at Dialysis.  Since i've now been put in charge of activities at my unit, i need help!  Anyone got any ideas for activities that aren't juvenile, insulting, stupid, etc?

Here are some i've come up with
1.  bingo (of course)
2.  trivial pursuit (modified)
3.  hand massages
4.  pictionary
5.  vegas day with blackjack, slots, showgirl
6.  toting treasures - if you have the item i'm looking for in your tote bag and show me before anyone else, win a prize
7.  Charades (with staff doing the acting and patients the quessing)

Any additional ideas would be great! 

Thanks y'all! 

[KR Cincy]

Good luck...when I was in center, there were no activities. Most folks wanted to sleep or watch TV...I know, at the time, I would not be participatory in some group activity. I'm sure there are some folks who will appreciate this, but be tolerant of those who just want to be left alone.

[paris]

When I read the title, I was excited. I taught "Pre K" for 18 years.  Pre-Kindergarten.          I, also, would be one not to participate. When my mother was in an Alzheimer's unit, the staff tried to do many of the same things with the patients.  My mother, a very successful woman, (not of clear mind at this point) looked at me with a look that could kill. Not her idea of fun, either.    I guess you just need to know your clients and respect those who don't want to join in.    Thanks for caring for the renal community.

[Zach]

exercise ...

or do the hokey pokey without turning yourself around.

That's what it's all about.
 

[monrein]

I would ask your actual patients about their interest in any of these activities.  Personally, the only one that would interest me is the hand massage and even that not so much.  Manicure would be OK too perhaps but I'm also quite sure that I'd be super irritated by bingo calling or other noisy stuff going on around me.  If you wanted me to root through my purse to find an apple core so I could win a pill box or something similar, I'd pretend to be asleep every time I saw you coming.  I want computer access then I can play games online quietly if I want to or read the newspaper or whatever.  You could provide things to lend to patients to help them pass time (hand held game thingies, crosswords, sudoku, dvd players and movies).  Then you can spend your time talking to individual patients, getting to know them and their needs so you can advocate for them with the dietician or the rest of the team.  You could try putting together a newsletter with poems, recipes, stories, art, photos etc contributed by patients who were interested.  

I know that many people really enjoy group activities but I dislike them in my real life and certainly don't want to do them on dialysis.  I'd go mad.  I'm grateful we don't have them where I dialyze.  

Please don't take anything I've said personally.  I am a former social worker and did a six month placement in a dialysis unit at a hospital.  If I'd been asked to act as a social director I would have been unhappy and insulted.  In polling the patients about what I could do for them (apart from my main role which was to provide counseling and run a support group) they wanted tvs and when I was able to obtain funding for those and permission from hospital authorities, they felt heard.  It was then that they felt I could be trusted with their real struggles and issues.

Best of luck jberdahl.  I don't envy you being "in charge of activities".  It's a tough job and I applaud you for trying as hard as you obviously are.  

[Lori1851]

Uno is a fun game. Dustin and I were talkin about that last night. We use to play on rainy days when we use to camp. I remember saving my wild draw 4 cards for him lol!!!!!
Lori/Indiana

[okarol]

I think it's a good idea to ask your patients.
You could create a survey, and ask them to check off what they like, or to make suggestions.
You could also give them an incentive to turn in the survey by giving them a ticket to a drawing for those who turn it in - maybe a gift card to someplace fun or useful (instead of another freakin blanket or water bottle.)

I guess musical chairs is out.

  Good luck!

[twirl]

just got this today
atendance record   month April
# of treatments attended    13
# of missed treatments          0
# of early terminations           2
bone bucks earned for attendance    0

[twirl]

pushed a key and this disappeared
If you did not receive any bone bucks, it is because you either missed a treatment, which does not include hospitalizations, and you signed an AMA form. In order to receive bone bucks for attendance you must attend all treatments and not sign off early or be late to treatment.
I could win and this gets really encouraging
a trip to Galveston for two, including a free meal
or dinner and movies tickets to Woodlands
  wrong contest
my prizes
davita bag, lunch bag, sugar free gum, back scratcher, diffusers (?)      oh, hell yeah! you got me motivated now

[twirl]

my computer is getting freaky
keeps doing things

ask your patients what they would like to win.....maybe we would just like to be adults doing our time...
a nice cup of hot tea or a 4 ounce serving of grape juice over crackling ice....

[monrein]

Twirl my girl, as usual you have me rolling around laughing at how pathetic the whole thing sounds.  And I think it's a waste of social worker skills to be distributing prizes and infantalizing poor patients who can't escape. 

[Meinuk]

Dialysis is not fun and games.

Think incentives, boredom and education.  Forget about bingo, and engage people (if they want to be engaged) Empower them.  Dialysis isn't daycare. 

If people have to wait for a chair to open up, play the waiting game.  The person who is forced to wait the longest for a chair to open up - wins a prize.  Or the person who has to wait the longest for their ride to show up.  Give them a prize the next day that they come to the unit.  Compensate people.

The same with know your lab values.  (not the stickers on the "Dialysis for Dummies" sheet - their real lab values and what they mean.)

Play guess the phosphorus.  Bring in a box of cheerios and ask people if it is good for them.

Change your mind frame from "Dialysis can be fun" to "let's try to make everyone a bit healthier"  Health trumps fun every time in my book.

Help them learn about what is happening to their bodies - and how to make it easier.

Prizes should include an I Hate Dialysis. com T-shirt

Oh, and charades?  With the current staffing problems in Dialysis, Staff should be working.  I don't want a nurse acting out a movie title when my alarm needs attention or my chart needs updating. 

Also, for incentives, since many people can't work, give them projects for at home to bring into dialysis - make a poster, write an article about being on dialysis or pick out some artwork to hang on the walls.  Start a unit Newsletter, get the patients INVOLVED, don't just try to keep them occupied.  The more that a person engages in their heath care, the better the outcome.

[monrein]

  Meinuk for President.

[okarol]

Meinuk for President.

I second that!

[Stacy Without An E]

I applaud you for trying to take the dreariness and boredom out of Dialysis treatments, but when they tried to do bingo in my center last Christmas, most patients treated the activity as background noise instead of participating.  To be honest, when I'm at treatment I feel half past awful and just want to be left alone so I can disappear into my latest movie.  Most patients seem to feel the same way.

[twirl]

so today I fell asleep, which is a blessing
and I wake up to the social worker asking me if I had any bone bucks for this cart of prizes
please do not wake me up for anything other than time to go home
and as far as waking me up for ice, just leave it
I do not care about any of those prizes
leave me alone

[Earlinda]

I always enjoyed the occasional bingo game.  I never did win the prize I wanted though always some kind of body butter from the 99cent store.  ho hum!!  But it did pass the time somewhat when I couldn't sleep.  Then there were days when the dietician passed out some kind of renal friendly goodie to eat.  The best thing was when one of the patients wife would bring little presents.  I woke up one day to the cutest and softest teddy bear you ever did see.  I was feeling a little low that day and the bear was like a little best friend that made that day a little easier to take.  I think activities are a good thing as long as it isn't pushed on anyone that doesn't want to participate.

Earlinda

[monrein]

Why are social workers involved with this rubbish?  They could pay someone minimum wage to man a cart of "prizes".  I suspect the thinking is that this will help to build rapport with patients but it's a silly practice and patients need real support and advocacy from social workers.  Just look at all the topics and questions that arise on a board like this, everything from finances to sexuality issues, addiction to travel planning.  Look at how much benefit we derive from talking with each other here and gaining support from each other here.  And it's not just patient to patient.  The caregivers who care know our issues inside out and we find it helpful to  "talk" with them about our worries, fears etc.  Why isn't the social worker involved in this way?  The social worker ought to be learning all he/she can about the life issues that affect people in general (and these are different at every stage of life and different again for each individual) then throw a huge monkey wrench (a serious chronic illness )into the mix and there should be enough to keep one very very busy in a unit.  They also have to learn all they can about the meds, the diet, dialysis, the side effects, the countless procedures and on and on.  They have to get close as if in our skins and then pull back so as to be objectively helpful and do their job.  They should not be learning which dollar store has the best price on back scratchers.  That may have a place in a unit along with activities but I don't think it's a SW's role.

Sorry for this rant but I do remember the totally useless SWs who annoyed the crap out of me with their silly questions and profound lack of understanding of what was on my mind.  And I compare them all to one who was a serious, caring person, equipped with a sense of humour because seriousness can be overrated, who could not make ESRD go away but who could tolerate just being with me as I faced the painfulness and grief of what was happening in my life, who could just sit and listen as I got things out of my mind and into words, who agreed that life was unfair but never got overwhelmed by my chaotic rush of emotions.  I was overwhelmed and she helped me to do what I needed to do.  She was the eye of my personal hurricane and I learned from her how to do some of that for myself. I wasn't her "friend" nor was she mine.  She helped me to learn how to ask questions of my medical team.  We'd role play what I'd say to a nurse who had pissed me off for example because I was young and conflicted about how to handle it all.  And if all was OK with me she'd be pleasant, ask directly how I was doing and move on to someone else who needed to unload or find resources or just feel understood that day or someone who wanted to make an appointment to meet in her office for a bigger block of time.  I remember still how she introduced herself the first time, asked how I was doing, I said fine and she said "No, I mean how are you really doing with this disease and with everything it's brought into your life?"  Maybe I should have pretended to be asleep,  I hadn't planned on crying so much that day.

Leave Twirl alone when she's sleeping.  That's really all I had planned to say.!!!    

[Mizar]

 
  Ouch. This is not Your Fault, but I have to Tell You.
  My Husband, went into Dialysis, Four Months Ago.
  Sudden, Unexpected, ............For Life, Three Times a Week.
  He came Home, Yesterday, with a Paper. It was a " Search
  and Find, Foods that are High in Potassium"
  I don't know how he felt about this Paper, but I was .............Hurt.
  This is not a Game.........It's His Life.
  These are Adults and they are Fighting for Their Lives.
  Sorry, if  I Offend anyone.........
  Both my Husband and I are Both trying to get on with our Lives and
  be as Up as we can about this..............

[kitkatz]

We currently have a contest about phosphorous in my center.  If you nail the goals then you are put into a drawing for baskets.  I do not qualify yet.  I am above the goals.

[twirl]

so today I had to "stand in the corner"
I finally got bone bucks - 5 of them
I had that pararthyroid surgery so my numbers are improved
I have no interest in the bone bucks and I gave them to a lady in a chair by me
she wants some of those prizes----- I don't
I was asked not to share
isn't that want PreK is all about-----learning to share
gave them to her anyway
she wants to get enough to get a stuffed Davita cheerleader bear

[kitkatz]

Oh my God, Twirl!   Don't you want a stuffed DaVita cheer Bear?? 

[twirl]

I have one.

[kitkatz]

Epoman would have a fit for you all over your center!  He always hated the little Davita crap they would foist off on the patients.  Once we threatened to send all of our stuff to him!

[tubes]

We did bingo a different way at my unit. Instead of calling numbers out during treatment, the staff hung up a really big piece of poster board with individual bingo cards on it. After treatment on a monday u would check the board to see the new number for that day. You picked out your own bingo card and put your name above it and every monday u would mark the number if u had it. I thought it was a good idea, cuz u could participate or not and nobody was bothered during treatment.