Citation

Born DG, Thompson CD, Hitchcock JK. Activ. Adapt. Aging 1996; 20(4): 47-59.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1996, Informa - Taylor and Francis Group)

DOI

10.1300/J016v20n04_04

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Adult day programs assist many families in postponing or avoiding institutionalization of an elderly loved one. Their ability to attract clients, and manage many of the problems of aging, depends partly on finding and conducting appropriate activities for clients. This experiment analyzed a procedure which had previously been shown to at least double incidents of participation in a discussion of morning news by adult day clients. A morning newspaper was scanned for articles which were judged to be: (1) of interest to clients, or (b) of little interest to clients. Articles from these two categories were then either "read" to clients or "told" to them in a summary form. Generally speaking, "telling" news stories maintained high levels of client participation whether or not the stories had previously been judged to be of interest to clients; however, when stories were "read" participation was high only with articles judged to be of interest to clients. Although activities manuals often tell a reader what should be done they rarely tell a reader how that activity can be most effectively run; this experiment provides one example of the importance of the manner in which activities are conducted.