Solange

Hi Audrey,

You are a champion! How fabulous your horse race looks, well done!
I shall place the photo on the website for our colleagues to see.
Thank you for the feedback.

All the best

Solange

Hi Shirley, Mexican and Greek themes days will be featured in the January/2011 newsletter. At a later date we will have Japanese, South America, Philippines and Lebanese themes days.

It was once tradition for the Pope to give someone a pink rose on the fourth Sunday of Lent before Easter of cheer up the solemn nature of that season. Before the commercialization of Christmas, Advent was also a very solemn time for Christians; people use to practice fasting and repentance; hence the pink rose became the pink candle to 'liven-up' the tone of the season.

Hi Amanda, you are quite right. The best attention is the one on one attention, however in Nursing Homes it is hard to find the time to do it to every person.Where I work every resident has a 'special day' a month when staff can pamper that resident for a day. It works quite well.

Hi Rebecca, thanks for letting us know your Luau party was successful. We have one every year and it is always a lot of fun.

Hi Wendy - Men's activities that work for me are: dominos, gardening, conversation (Men's Club), any game that uses a dice, sanding and painting old furniture, carpet bowls, bowling, Hoy, and lately Wii game consoles.

Hi, regarding affordable presents for volunteers. You could assist residents to make book-marks as instructed in the website, but do it in scraps of colourful leather. I was given one in yellow leather with a giraffe's head at the top. I love it! You could also assist them to make small containers from clay and then decorate them. Working with clay provides a wide range of experiences - creative, tactile, and pleasurable.The firing can be done with or without a kiln. Fifteen years ago when I was working for the RSL in Pinjara Hills, a sight deficient gentleman made me a small container. It is one of my prized possessions ever. I will place a photo of it for you to see soon.Cheers, Solange

We have recently purchased a chicken coop and the excitement of the residents is palpable. They go for a walk to the chicken coop all day long.We only have three chickens and when we finally got some eggs, well, didn't everybody wanted to touch them, show them off and, cook with them!
It was a tremendous success in our case.

Great tips Kerry, thank you very much. In our facility we also sometimes use moisturizer first and then the aroma mixture, but the Vitamin E into the oil mixture sounds really good.

Having a basic understanding of one or more of the following can help you enhance your activity program: Aromatherapy, Massage Therapy, Horticultural therapy and multi-sensory therapy.