Nursing home activity directors provide seniors with things to do, and formal education or certification is usually required. Personal characteristics expected include leadership, patience, and the ability to generate and implement good ideas. The preferences and medical limitations of residents must be taken into account when planning activities.
A nursing home activities director works with the elderly population in a long-term or short-term care facility. A long-term nursing home provides permanent or full-time supervised care for seniors who have no other option, either due to their health needs or just the requirements of being older. A short-term nursing home provides assistance to seniors who live elsewhere but who are recovering from surgery and do not have adequate help in their own home. Activity directors are career professionals responsible for providing senior nursing home residents with things to do, such as crafts, puzzles, exercises, and games.
Formal education or certification is usually required to become a nursing home activities director today. This wasn’t always the case; as more demand for the position and competition for jobs arose, educational credentials increased. Many activities directors who have been working in the field for some time do not have a degree because the requirements were different when they were hired. Another reason certification has become desirable for people who want to work with seniors is to help set industry standards to better prevent elder abuse. Elder abuse is mistreatment of the elderly in any way, such as by neglecting to care for them or by violent acts against them.
Aspiring nursing home activity directors are taught in certification programs such as those regulated by the National Certification Board for Activity Professionals in the United States, that above all, seniors, regardless of their condition, should always be treated with respect. In addition to the quality of respect, the personal characteristics expected in a director of nursing home activities are leadership, patience, and the ability to generate and implement good ideas. Activity directors should always have workable ideas ready to go.
The preferences of nursing home residents, as well as any medical limitations, must be taken into account when a nursing home activities director plans his ideas. This is usually not an easy task as different people often have different activity preferences. Just as all children don’t like to play the same games or do the same work, neither do seniors. The activities director usually handles this by including something for everyone like puzzles and large letter games. He or she provides books, magazines, and puzzles for people to do on their own, as well as games and movie nights for seniors to enjoy together.
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