At Desert Terrace, we began doing groups for 3 reasons:
1. Increase patient motivation with therapy;
2. Improve efficiency on days with meetings;
3. To have more fun at work!
We perform several groups. On Fridays, our occupational therapy department has cooking groups. Each patient has a preparation task and a clean-up task to perform. They typically do a cooking breakfast group starting at 6:30 a.m.; although, we have also had groups making salsa, cookies, and salad.
The physical therapy department has multiple physical activity groups. We play volleyball, have obstacle courses, basketball toss, static and dynamic balance, and gait groups. Because we are an inner-city facility with many patients who use public transportation, we coordinate real-life community integration groups. The building gives each patient participating $5. We use public transportation and go to a nearby Wal-Mart or pharmacy to practice real-life community interactions.
We have discovered that our groups, especially the volleyball and basketball toss, motivate patients to stand and participate at a higher level than they would with traditional 1:1 therapy. We give prizes to the winners, which is another great motivator!
One idea we have for a future group is to obtain some fishing poles since we have a canal that runs behind our building. Our plan is to put weights on the fishing lines and just let folks “fish” for relaxation, balance, standing endurance, and upper extremity strength and mobility. In the next 90 days, we are also planning on starting a gardening group and a diabetic group. The diabetic group will include nursing, dietary, and physical therapy to discuss the importance of following a diabetic diet, and weight bearing and skin care orders to prevent and help heal diabetic wounds.
We have also found a book with some games that will help us come up with even more groups. Future plans include putting (as in golf), bowling, dart ball, and ring toss. Speech therapy has discussed beginning a card group on Friday afternoons.
We are excited to begin looking for other ways for our patients and for ourselves to have fun in therapy. We would love to hear what others are doing and will be glad to share information anyone may need.
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