moving your loved one into a nursing home

Adult Day Care Activities And Groups For Seniors

14 April 2016

Alisa Mantyla

Adult day care center activities operate much like college courses for participating senior members. The groups, clubs, and classes are structured to enhance the cognitive skills of the senior participants and emphasize awareness, reasoning, knowledge, intuition and judgment. These groups can begin with a lesson and class assignment and conclude with senior member responses to the assignments. All of these classes can continually change and seniors can take the class many times without repeating information. Here are some standard adult day care center activities and groups that can meet in a well-rounded and informational adult day care center:

• Book Club - For those seniors that like to read, adult day care centers can have a book club. The book club leader can distribute copies of the assigned book and assign a chapter to be read before each class. The leader can discuss the main characters and themes in the book as well as its historical, political, and environmental context. If the assigned book has been made into a movie, the members of the book club can have a field trip to view the movie and discuss the book's adaption to film. A book club can be a good source of cognitive stimulation for adults in an adult day care center and also a source of socialization as each book club member can discuss the book with other book club members. 

• Writers' Circle - Seniors that like to write can join a writers' circle. Poetry, short stories, and non-fiction articles can be assigned to the group members along with additional reading that exhibits well-written examples of all media. At each class, the members of the writers' circle can meet to discuss the writing assignment and read their written responses. These readings can be critiqued by all of the other writers' club members. The writers' circle can be another good source of mental stimulation and group socialization for all members. Field trips to libraries can be scheduled to hear special lectures and programs. 

• Artists' Group - Seniors with an artist's eye and love of painting, drawing, and sculpture, can join an Artists' Group. The meetings of this group can begin with a lecture on art history and various artists' media such as oils, watercolors, acrylics, graphite and charcoal, pen and ink, collage, and sculptural clay. The history and examples of each medium can be covered in the lectures along with a discussion of the subject matter. Field trips to local galleries and museums can be scheduled to give the group participants information on successful artists and their work.  

• Music Appreciation Group - Music class can initially acquaint the senior members with the unique sound and function of each of the musical instruments that are featured in a full classical orchestra. Classical composers can also be discussed and famous classical compositions can be played as examples. Senior members of the music appreciation group can be also taken on a field trip to hear a professional concert. 

Additional groups can be added in each adult day care center for the particular needs and desires of the participating senior members. The main purpose of these groups is to stimulate the senior participants to keep them mentally alert, socially active, and engaged in life. These activities can result in happy and healthy senior participants that remain stimulated for many years.   

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