How to Keep Your Low-Vision Residents Active
in Your Activity Program

With an increasing number of seniors having problems seeing, it’s necessary to provide more activities that can accommodate residents with low vision.

To target your residents with poor vision, be sure to add activities that focus on the other senses when filling out your monthly activity calendar. Here are 5 types:

1. Musical Activities. If possible, try to have at least one musical activity per day. Musical activities can include entertainers, a fun Name That Tune activity using CDs and having residents guess the song title, a simple Sing Along, or a Musical Bingo activity, in which you create bingo cards on the computer that are made up of song titles that residents will place a chip on once they hear the song being played from your CD.

2. Educational Activities. Consider hosting educational activities throughout the week that residents can listen to and enjoy. For example, host a fun Speaker Series each week, in which you invite different speakers (which can include family members or even co-workers like your facility’s nutritionist) to educate your residents about a particular topic. In addition, consider setting up a weekly Armchair Travel activity, in which low-vision residents can listen to interesting information about some of the cities they have traveled to in the past, or a weekly Music History activity, in which you play a CD from a famous artist and give a little history (which you can find on wikipedia.org) about the artist and some of their songs.

3. Tactile Activities. Try to include activities that allow residents to use their hands, like a sculpting activity that uses sculpting clay, a What Is It? activity where residents place their hands in a bowl of rice to identify the object that is submerged in the rice, or even a relaxing hand massage.

4. Smelling Activities. Create environments in which residents are stimulated by smells. For instance, every afternoon, pop popcorn for residents in your Activity Room, or bake a few cookies to entice residents to come out and socialize as they sample the tasty treats.

5. Tasting Activities. Think about incorporating a Taste Testing activity into your Activity Program in which once per week you make a different recipe and have the residents taste test to let you know if they like it.