Game helps reinforce age-specific care
Teaching home health staff about age-specific care can help them cope more effectively with the physical and emotional differences that come with patients and caregivers of different ages.
At Covenant Home Care in Morristown, TN, education coordinator Vanessa Massey, RN, has enlisted an old favorite — a variation on the television game show "Jeopardy!" — to reinforce age-specific care.
"We’ve done different things," she says. "We’ve done tests in the past; we’ve done a lecture-type mode. This is just a fun way to remind everyone of the different stages of development."
For veterans only
The game is not for new employees. Those employees receive training in the stages of development, and a section of the agency’s policy deals with age-appropriate care.
"We review this every year in some form or fashion," Massey says. "And the policy is always available to the staff to pull out of the policy book. [The game] is something we do as a yearly review. It’s not going over the policy again because that’s something they should already pretty much know."
Health workers often have personal situations in mind when they think of how people respond at certain ages, and it is helpful to remind them of the norms that have been observed in larger populations, she says. "You yourself may have child who developed real early, but that’s not the norm."
The game is set up much like other health-related adaptations of "Jeopardy!" Massey lists the stages of development to which players will refer as they play the game:
• infant (ages 0-1);
• toddler (1-3);
• preschool (3-5);
• school age (6-12);
• adolescent (13-19);
• early adult (19-45);
• middle adult (45-60);
• older adult (60+).
She creates a large playing board, divided into the following categories:
• motor/sensory;
• psychosocial;
• physical;
• cognitive;
• intervention.
Under each category, she lists five to seven answers and covers each with a paper-clipped index card that shows a dollar designation ($10, $20, $30, etc.). A player picks a category and dollar amount: for example, "Intervention" for $20. Massey takes the index card and reads the answer underneath: "Provide favorite age-specific foods," for which the correct stage would be "toddler."
"If they can tell me what stage of development is the right answer, they gain the dollar amounts — not actual money, but dollar amounts," she says with a laugh.
At the end, the players with the highest dollar amounts win prizes, often Little Debbies or other types of snacks, Massey says. There is a quiz afterward as well.
Spanning the ages
She says the information helps home health workers as they go into situations where they may be dealing with an unfamiliar age group. "There’s a lot of times we see different age groups that may not be our specialty," she says. "For instance, therapy may see a pediatric patient. Plus in home care, you may have a grandmother that you’re taking care of, but you’ve got a lot of other family dynamics that you’re dealing with, too. It’s good to review where those family members are coming from."
Massey says it’s important to remember that while the stages of development are good general guidelines for predicting responses and suggesting interventions, they shouldn’t be interpreted too strictly in the home.
"This gives you parameters on stages of development, but you really can’t put individuals in a box. You can’t assume that they’re all going to do this particular thing at a certain age. What this does is to give you some basics to help you be more effective in your interventions. Because some people learn at different ages, you can take a different approach."
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