ActivityProfessional.Com Login

Username/Email:
Password:
Keep me signed in
Forget your Password Reset it!

• Home
• NCCAP CE Credit
• Free Activity Ideas
• Instructor
• Create an Account

Contact:
info@activityprofessional.com
330.835.5009
(M-F 9:30-9:00 Eastern)
or
Voice Mail: 925-391-0363

Healthcare Training Institute - Quality Education since 1979

Section 26
Monetary Value, Common Interest

Table of Contents | NCCAP/NCTRC CE Booklet

a. Monetary Value: Complaints are Big Motivators
In the preceding section, I asked you to list the names of your complainers.  I would now like you to envision your lounge where your residents can smoke, if you allow smoking in your facility; imagine the residents’ use some type of metal ashtray.  The complaining resident’s name was Hester.  Hester complained about the ashtrays in the smokers lounge, and they were pretty badly stained.  Finally the facility bought new ashtrays, but they were inexpensive ones.  So, even though they weren’t stained, Hester did not like them because they were inexpensive.  Now social services and activities found out that this lady loved birds, and when she lived at home she had bird feeders all around her house.  So the Activity Director talked to Hester about making birdhouses.  Here’s how she motivated Hester to become involved.  She stated to Hester, “We can buy birdhouses unassembled, and now that we’re into spring, I bet that we could sell these for double what we pay for them.  If you could help make the birdhouses, we could take the profits and buy some nice ashtrays to sit right here on the table by the chair that you sit in.” 

CMS Culture Change, “Person Appropriate”:  Hester was motivated to make birdhouses.  The Activity Director took an idea from her past, because she loved birds, along with her current complaint about the ashtrays, and got her involved.  The lesson to be learned here is concerning your complain residents.  I want you to think, what is the main area that he or she complains about?  Now there may be several areas.  But if you would write below your complainer’s name, what’s the main area he or she complains about?  Hester complained about the ashtrays.  Now, the Activity Director has Hester sanding and painting birdhouses. 

That complaint can become the resident's motivator to get involved in some way in which they haven’t  in the past.  She is highly motivated by that thing that she has been complaining about. 

Residents who may become motivated by their "Complaints"

Culture Change Implementation CNA Inservice:  Brainstorm about “Complaining” residemts and possible motivators that can or do work.

b. Common Interest or a Need to Know
You probably have found like I that having a common interest with others can serve as a big motivator.   Here’s a personal story to illustrate this.  I went to the doctor and I asked, “Why is it that I am dizzy sometimes, or I have a hard time concentrating, or sometimes I get really shaky and feel weak?”  As it turned out, I had low blood sugar, and because of low blood sugar I had to go on a special diet.  It was a diet in which I had to trade in my wonderful diet colas with caffeine and my starches in the morning, for protein and vegetables.  It was extremely hard for me to totally change my eating habits after all those years.  So I bought a couple of books about low blood sugar.  After I read them, the diet was easier to live with, because after reading the books, I knew why certain foods affected me in certain ways.. 

Relating my experience regarding a “Need to Know” as a motivator, think about that more alert segment of your resident population.  Maybe they fear they will slip into Alzheimer’s forgetful behavior.  Maybe residents who have had a stroke or are diabetic would be interested in attending a Health Issues Discussion Group.  You might invite experts from the hospital to come in and give talks to residents and answer their questions.  So if you had enough residents that would benefit from attending a Health Issues Discussion Group, residents may be motivated to attend by having a "Common Interest."

Write below the names of residents who are alert enough to be aware of a group discussion regarding a particular health concern they may have.  Then, duplicate this table in Word, Excel, or a notebook and list additional residents.

Residents who may become motivated by a Discussion Group of a "Common Interest"

Culture Change CNA Inservice:  Brainstorm about residents who CNAs feel could be, or are motivated by having a “Common Interest.”