Nursing home games are a thing of evil.

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
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On Saturday I was dragooned into volunteering at a ‘nursing home olympics’ near where I live. Upon arriving at the gymnasium where it was held, I was assailed by a spectacle the like of which (in retrospect) I hope never to see again: Ranks of the elderly festooned with colored felt swatches and performing what I will tentatively call sports. These included, but may not have been limited to, frisbee-discus, races (with wheelchairs and walkers), and volleyball played with a balloon while sitting in a (wheel)chair. Some of the elderly were dressed as Cowboy style indians, complete with fringe and colored feathers stuck to their heads. On entering I passed what seemed to be a pair of miniature ponies. Their purpose was unclear. Luckily, there were extra volunteers, so my roommate and I were able to escape after only about an hour and 3/4s.

My first reaction was to laugh, but this is often the case when I meet with something that seems absurd. After getting past that a new question presented itself, namely “WTF is going on here?!?” This is a question I’ve yet to answer, and the reason I brought this up. Is it malevolent spirits? Unlikely. Misplaced good deed? Maybe. Incredibly boneheaded attempt to - what? Express civic virtue? Show appreciation for the elderly? Apologize for putting them in a nursing home? Cheer them up? I just can’t figure out what this is supposed to accomplish, nor how it’s supposed to be fun for the old people. But clearly the people that set this up thought it a good idea. Why? What am I missing here?

I think this may be a good example for evil on the pettifogger’s level: something that’s useless and mildly degrading passed off as something worthwhile. Like filling out the 1040EZ.

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Last graph is right on, Firx. Also – these places hire “activity directors” & those folks have to have something to do.

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Maybe the old folks were enjoying themselves? I admit the whole scene sounds a bit absurd, but I’ve learned never to put anything past old people. My 102-year-old great-grandmother has seen to THAT.

4

Hey I work in a nursing home, and athe “Olympics” of which you speak was just basically grouping all the recreation aides “programming” into one lump “event”

Here’s a typical week of activities at my facility… (Remember the floor is work on is severe dementia… so the more active stuff like w/c races etc wouldnt happen. That does happen in other parts of the building.)

Sunday… current events…and cross word puzzle. (They read items out of the sort of neighbour hood paper… Nothing about missiles, and weapons of mass destruction… more about the ladies auxillary are having their spring tea) The benefit of this for people who dont remember eating breakfast… well dubious at best. Only one resident can help with crossword puzzle at all, but the RA just keeps going.

Piano music in the after lunch time… then a movie. Yesterday was the 4th sunday in a row that it was “Sound of Music”
(I dream of throwing the tape of a bridge and singing “so long, farewell, …”

Modays usually has “active games” which is throwing a beach ball around the circle. Some get bopped in the face, if they arent really fast enough to catch it.

There’s also Music therapy on mondays. run by an actually talented person who is a music therapist, and that is a good time.

Tuesday has baking cookies or something, and a tea in the afternoon.

Wednesdays…more active games… (sometimes with a Parachute thing, that they wave up and down) and manicures . And Music T.

Thursdays is usually outings… bus rides to see flowers or something. Sometimes the higher functioning ones go out for lunch too. (insert recreation aide is out to lunch permanently joke here)

Fridays tend to have a travelouge of something, and a theme related snack. IE Ireland for St Paddy’s with shamrock cookies, green apple juice. Another day it was Mexico, and they had fruit punch and wore sombreros. But no chalupas or anything. Plain cookies.

So yeah it looks demented. I question a lot of it. But what the hey, if it keeps my residents from screaming “I have to POOO” for half an hour Im happy.

(doesnt take much, does it? :wink:

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I’m pretty certain that there were multiple nursing homes there, but I suppose that doesn’t rule out some lump programming. I sorta got the impression that it was meant to be analogous to, or based on, the special olympics, but never having been to the SO I couldn’t really say.

The “theme” stuff sounds dead on with what I saw there.

Anyhow, it was extremely weird and not a bit disconcerting.

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What you witnessed was stage five of the Strip Away Your Dignity Programme many people have to endure when they get past their sell-by date.

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Having just returned from my weekly nursing home visit (Sadie the Dachshund visiting her adoring fans), I would say that you’ve forgotten one thing: boredom. You have no idea how boring life is for people in nursing homes. They are there because they have physical limits on what they can do, which means they can’t do much. Many of them still have functioning brains, but this can be hidden by poor hearing or eyesight, or something like a stroke that limits the ability to talk. Days are very long and slow. One fellow I was talking to today told me he watches TV shows he hates, just to pass the time. He can’t read anymore, can’t do anything involving walking around, can’t see well enough to do crossword puzzles or jigsaw puzzles or crafts of any kind. He goes nuts over Sadie because she is a spot of variety in his life.

I would be willing to bet that if you were confined in similar circumstances, you would think the olympics thing was lots of fun.