‘We are keeping our residents busy’

Maplewood provides activities, promotes social distancing

From working on crossword puzzles to penning letters to loved ones, Maplewood residents are keeping busy amidst challenging times.

As the global COVID-19 pandemic continues, the Brighton long-term care home remains closed to all but essential visitors. That means many residents aren’t seeing their family members in person, but Maplewood is ensuring everyone still remains in touch.

Administrator and life enrichment co-ordinator Rachel Corkery says residents recently worked on letters and included photos to send to their loved ones.

Employees also continue to provide residents with activities during isolation.

“We are using a number of free online resources for puzzles — word searches, crosswords et cetera,” Rachel tells The OMNIway.

“A number of great activities are being developed to promote social distancing while still looking for ways to keep our residents engaged and active.”

Rachel has spent some evenings at home brainstorming and researching online for unique crafts and puzzles that would be appropriate.

While maintaining social distancing, Maplewood residents were also involved in the long-term care home’s recent participation in Nutrition Month in March.

With the goal of increasing both the education about and the consumption of healthy foods, the nutritional care department worked collaboratively with life enrichment staff on numerous activities.

For instance, residents helped peel carrots and conversed about healthy choices. Residents helped prepare the recipes and talked about the importance of scratch cooking, Tracy Morewood, nutritional care manager, recently told The OMNIway.

“We don’t have a lot of completely out-sourced products,” Tracy says.

“Instead of outsourcing, we try to adapt and use homemade recipes. Almost all of our soups are from scratch and residents give us advice on recipes and we try to adapt our menu to reflect this.”

In addition, residents had a blindfold taste-test activity with nutritional foods and tried raisins, avocadoes and other healthy foods.

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