Creating Art

This past week we had an Art Show for the Art Group I coordinate at the Stroke Recovery Association of Manitoba.

We get together every Wednesday morning at the Stroke Recovery center. We put out lots of different art supplies and participants are able to work on anything they want to. This is certainly not an art class but an opportunity for self expression. Some enjoy the details and work on the same project for a period of weeks while others might produce several pieces in a morning.  I try to offer a new idea, technique or medium each month and encourage participants to give it a try. You never know when something new might turn out to be an activity you will love doing. The creative arts have a special role in helping us find joy and well being in our lives.

The group was originally organized by an Art Therapist and focused on a psychological therapeutic model. When she left the group continued on as a social and peer support group that enjoyed creating art. Eventually I began to help with the group. As a Recreation Therapist I try to support the social, emotional, cognitive and physical needs of the group members but always... enjoyment and fun need to be the priorities at our art mornings.

I try to encourage participants to try new things and engage in learning new skills.  We try to use weaker hands and eyes to gain improved control and strength and we try to work on any left neglect issues that might have occured with strokes.

Decision making, focusing attention, spatial processing, sequencing and planning as well as other cognitive skills can begin to improve as we work on creating art. We assist individuals in trying new tricks and adaptive methods to reach their goals. Something as simple as using painters tape can keep the art paper from sliding away and a Masonite board can increase options for supporting the paper at different, more comfortable angles, kind of like a clipboard. That painters tape can even result in an attractive border strip around a painting!

We share our friendship. We express ourselves through conversation and also with our art. We create. We share our accomplishments and we feel proud of what we achieve.

P.S. One of the ladies at the art show said I needed a picture of me at the art show. I was trying to get pictures of my artists but had not even thought of getting a picture of myself. The picture above was Vera's first attempt to take a picture with a phone and I think it is wonderful!

Fish Fry for the Seniors

Yesterday we did an interesting program at work. We had a fish fry lunch!

My co-worker, on this Fathers Day weekend shift, is a man who has a lot of past experience in leading  youth camping and other outdoor programming and he suggested that we go out on our patio and use an old fashioned Colman camp stove to cook up a fish fry! I thought that was pretty brilliant. With my camping experience we were on the same page about what a good experience this could be and how to do it!

My co-worker, D, took care of all the food aspects and I was supposed to do a few fishing games, fishing reminiscence and jokes but we didn't get all those extras fit in. I wound up spending my time inviting residents to join us for lunch and then transporting them to the patio.  I think they couldn't believe I was serious that we were having a cookout.

We have a small but  nicely treed fenced patio that is surprisingly pleasant oasis to have in our downtown facility surrounded by large buildings.  We set up a cooking station and had a picnic table set up with an old green Colman Stove. Our  menu consisted of  batter dipped cod fish fillets, bannock or fry bread and baked beans.  One fun aspect was that D. found some nice divided take out containers that we used as disposable dishes. They were perfect for our outdoor lunch. People loved sitting out on this beautiful day, listening to a favorite CD of country music, watching the camp cooking and eating such a rare style of cooking for a Personal Care Home. 

I was exhausted by 1 pm. so I was really glad we had planned an easy afternoon. My co-worker set up the dining room for watching a movie and put on a Three Stooges marathon DVD. Whoever wanted to watch it could.  This was a good choice because it is a series of very short films and on a day like Fathers Day there is a lot of coming and going of visitors, so it made it easy for people to join in at any point in the program or even for people to come and share a laugh with their loved ones.

Love. You. Run for Women

Yesterday was a great running event called Love. You.    Run for Women. 

It was an event in support of the Mood Disorders Association of Manitoba sponsored by Shoppers Drug Mart and the Running Room. They also hosted runs in other provinces supporting  local mental health associations.

Did you know that in Canada,

• On any given week, more than 500,000 Canadians will not go to work due to mental illness?
• Mood disorders occur at a rate of 5.4 percent of the population.
• 1 in 8 adults will suffer symptoms during their lifetime.
• Seniors suffer at a rate of 1 in 4. 
• Women suffer from depression at double the rate of men.

These are huge numbers!

My daughter and my 8 year old granddaughter took part in this run last year and this year my 5 year old grandson joined in too. They have a category for young children to run a kilometer just for fun and all the kids get a nice medal on a ribbon plus snacks and a loot bag.  After the 8:30 children's event we moved on to the 10K run or walk and to the 5 K run or walk. Our Mayor was even there and called the start for the race. It was all very exciting!  Next year I will bring a decent camera and  maybe I will be in good enough shape to try the 5K myself!

It was a nasty cold morning, near freezing, but keeping moving and then hot chocolate and a fleecy blanket all helped keep my little grand-kids warm. They had a few games for the kids, a photo booth, a wall to write encouraging thoughts on, a booth to raise awareness about mental illness. There was Japanese style drumming for entertainment and a few speeches- one included the news that they had raised, with the help of Shopper Drug Mart, over $40,000. That is going to go a long way to making a difference to a lot of people.

I know that life changing illness, such as stroke, heart attack, cancer diagnoses have a profound effect on ones emotional and mental health. I was very fortunate that as part of my rehab I was required to work with a social worker who was trained to support us in dealing with all the changes that were happening to me and my family.

People need to know that there is indeed help out there for mental health issues. If you or your family and friends are having a hard time you need to know that you are not alone.


From the Canadian Public Health Agency:

What is Depression?

Everybody goes through "ups and downs" in their lives. Sometimes we use the term "depression", or "depressed" to describe these everyday feelings.

But the normal experiences of life shouldn't be confused with the serious medical illnesses known as mood disorders. There are different kinds of depressive mood disorders, including bipolar disorder (manic-depressive illness), perinatal depression, but clinical depression, or major depression is the most common mood disorder.

Mood disorders are very real illnesses that can have serious and sometimes fatal results. They affect the entire body and not just the mind. Their physical symptoms can range from fatigue to stomach complaints or muscle and joint pain. Many people never realize that they are suffering from depression.

Let's Draw Recreation Therapy-- Video

I love this little video. It explains in under 3 minutes what I do at work!

One thing the video does not make clear is that we need to make the activities fit the needs of the individuals. My seniors would not be suited to doing a ropes course for a social activity but they do love singing along with an entertainer or having a discussion group and coffee party!

Therapeutic Recreation is not all about fun and games... We look at the person's current abilities and needs as well as their interests, their past hobbies, work history and what new things they might like to try. We use that information to help a person with recovery or to maintain their current skills.

Our main objective is to help people achieve a good quality of life.

After the Fall

I had a fall in December and hurt my back as well as my stronger  hip and leg. I kind of looked like the guy in the caution sign.. twisted at the hip and landing on my own leg and bottom.  I have not missed any work but  I was on modified duties for some time and I have been taking it very easy at home. I also have done a lot of physiotherapy and my recovery has been much slower than expected.  I only have one more appointment covered by insurance and I am nowhere near the place I was before my fall. Dealing with insurance and all the non-recovery parts of this has been a bad experience. The fact that I have issues with my other, weaker, side, including a bad arthritic knee has really interfered with the course of my recovery, my exercises, and so on. Theoretically I can put in an appeal to have an extension of insurance for the physiotherapy but the process seems very intimidating and stressful and I am not confident that I will be successful.


I can not believe what a hard time I have been having with this. I have been in a lot of pain and really feeling limited in how I move, how much I move and how fast I move.  I have been taking lots of pain medications that upsets my tummy.  I am doing better now, lots better in fact, but not enough to sleeping well or enjoying activities.  One simple example is when we went to a movie in the theatre not long ago and I found it too painful to keep seated in the theatre chair, and too hard to get up and down out if it. Walking back to the car after sitting for the show was a challenge too. At home I am once again avoiding the stairs to my basement and asking family members to do my laundry and fetch items from the storage areas for me.

Fortunately my job actually has a lot of flexibility in the actual duties. There are a few physical aspects that can not be helped, but I have spent more time doing activities like reading out loud, sitting doing nail polish and playing board games. I have been avoiding things like games where I would need to do any bending or lifting. My co-workers have been very nice about it all but they were more than ready for me to get off modified duties and for work life to get back to normal. I have been really glad that I work so few hours so that I had time to recovery in between the days I work and now I think I am handling things pretty smoothly,

Anyway a big part of why I haven't been blogging much is because the main thing I have wanted to talk about is how miserable I have been feeling and that gets boring very quickly even to me. I have to remind myself that this is far from the worst challenges I have faced and I just need to persevere once again.

I have been waiting around for most of the winter for things to be all better and now it is almost summer so it is time to suck it up and just do Stuff.  .. Now to figure out just what that Stuff might be!

Conference Time

There are a bunch of interesting conferences going on in my area at this time of the year. This week I attended a  one day workshop organised by and for families dealing with Autism and other related disorders. Tuesday I am going to attend one day of the Alzheimer Societies' Dementia Care Conference. I am also hoping to attend our Provincial Girl Guide Conference at the end of April. 

About a week ago I attended my second conference with Recreation Connections of Manitoba and I had a wonderful time. I learned a lot and have come home with an assortment of information and ideas that I want to share in future blog posts!

 

Recreation Connection is a non-profit association that supports recreation in our province and Therapeutic Recreation is included as a branch of the organization. When I was in school we had the opportunity to attend a Fall therapeutic recreation workshop day. Last year I attended the full Spring conference for Recreation Connection for the first time.

 

I was very surprised by my experiences last year. I expected to benefit from the Therapeutic Recreation  related sessions but I was not so sure about all these other sessions on recreation in general and about community recreation facilities, fitness, the need for play, outdoor education, accessibility for recreation. I found myself absolutely loving it. More than that .. I felt knowledgeable. I liked the people I met, I was inspired, and I felt at home.

 

I had not put it together that I was interested in the Field of Recreation!  I knew I was interested in the therapy aspects but I had not thought about how much time I have spent learning about and supporting recreation in my community. Guiding ... is recreation. All the outdoor stuff we do .. is recreation. Swimming, boating, music, and all the arts I have participated in over the years... Yup recreation. I have attended so many trainings related to youth education and how organizations works and I am always reading up on different topics.  

 

I previously believed our University's Recreation Faculty was all about sports, fitness and kinesiology. I really have very little experience in sports so this whole field never really crossed my radar.  I have never been very fit or very athletic, in fact I was always that last person to be picked during gym class.

 

The fitness and sports programs really does predominate but... then there is  this other stream .. Bachelor of Recreation Management and Community Development. From their webpage:

 



Tomorrow's conference is on several topics dealing with dementia care which will seem very different from talking about the need for recreation and play.  I will be attending two break out sessions and  will listen to the following two keynote speakers. I am really looking forward to the day.

Increasing the Well-Being and Quality of Life of People with Dementia Using New Technologies
Dr. Klein will share her expertise on assistive technologies and emotional and social robotics.

Quality Care in Long Term Care: Is Dignity the Answer?
Ensuring that people living and working in long term care (LTC) are afforded with respect and dignity is an essential and humane concern.  with Genevieve Thompson
 Quote above from the conference application.

The Wall - A video

I thought this video was interesting. Take a look and see what you think.
I am a firm supporter for participation in the arts - It is for all ages.