Recreation Product Interventions for Dementia Residents

We will explore the feasibility of developing a specialized collection of recreational interventionsto be used by nursing assistants in managing the agitated behavior of nursing home residents with seniledementia of the Alzheimer's type and for engaging these residents during their unstructured idle time.Nursing and recreational staffs will be surveyed concerning their satisfaction with existing recreationaltools as well as current strategies for handling agitated behavior. A selection of existing interventiontools will then be introduced onto the unit to serve as the catalyst for developing performance criteriafor more specialized intervention products. Ten to twelve nursing assistants will be oriented to thefunction of the interventions and encouraged to use them with a sample of 12-15 residents who havebeen assessed by staff as reflecting high and low levels of agitation. Residents and staff will beobserved using the interventions during agitated and idle periods. Staff will critique the existinginterventions and assess their effectiveness as behavioral management tools. The interviews andobservations will identify design criteria for a new collection of products. Cross Creek will then explorethe feasibility of developing them within cost and manufacturing constraints.