Level I geriatric fieldwork adventures continue

Second day of second week…

I’m pretty stressed out with projects and such so tonight is a short one. Mostly nothing too interesting happened today, except that someone donated two dolls, and they were a huge hit. If you have nice baby dolls your kids have outgrown, consider donating them to an adult day care for Alzheimer’s or the like.

The one interesting thing: I followed my talkative friend into the men’s bathroom because I knew he needed help. Unfortunately there was no aide around. Before I could stop him, he whipped his bits out and peed into the wastebasket instead of in a urinal stall. Oopsie doopsies.

Other than that, a relatively quiet calm day. I actually spent some nice time in a rocking chair today, sitting next to my Fixxylady in her own rocking chair, with 3 babies on her. I held her hand and we rocked and looked at the garden in the quiet room, and honestly, both of us were starting to doze off. Very professional, I know. LOL. I also gave some hand massages, did a lot of one-on-one visiting, and just in general, continued to learn more and more about the people.

Oh – an experiment I tried today. My talkative man loved cleaning up in the garden the other day. He likes to do stuff. Right now he seems obsessed with us leaving the facility and going somewhere nearby. I saw some people doing a craft that involved pipe cleaners, and decided to see what would happen. I threw some pipe cleaners randomly around a certain area + tied them to some door knobs etc, and then encouraged him to help me pick them up. He did a few but then stopped. I’ll try again tomorrow some other way to create a mess for him. I also wanted to see if the anguished wandering lady would be intrigued, since she frequently stoops down and puts her hand out as if she is trying to grab something on the floor. She just ignored them though. Oh well, worth a shot. Gotta keep trying. 🙂

Have I mentioned I love these participants, and the employees? What a wonderful place.

Apr 02, 2008 | Category: Occupational Therapy | Comments: none