Older people's mental health.

Abstract

Activities are used as a medium to facilitate therapeutic outcomes in rehabilitation. Therapeutic outcomes include the development of social skills, improving one's physical or mental wellbeing, skill acquisition such as daily living skills or literacy skills, and many others. Steele Haughton Extended Care Unit is a psychogeriatric nursing home under Grampians Psychiatric Services, Ballarat Health Services. Steele Haughton Unit is a fourteen bed unit for persons aged over sixty five who have a serious mental illness. These residents also have numerous physical issues typical of the aged population. The activity program at Steele Haughton Unit previously included social activities to occupy residents' time. However, the Commonwealth Department of Health and Aged Care Standards clearly tell us that activities are not sufficient, they need to be justified and therapeutic. To promote optimal mental and physical health activities need to be well planned to ensure they have a goal and purpose. Steele Haughton Unit has explored the program it offers and now activities are specifically designed to meet residents' goals. This paper aims to demonstrate the importance of therapeutic activities to promote mental and physical health as well as outlining the method used to evaluate and re-structure the existing program. Learning Objectives: 1.To demonstrate the importance of goal directed activity to achieve therapeutic outcomes in mental health. 2.To encourage other clinicians to consider how they use activity currently and how they could optimise the use of activities in the future.