Recreational Therapists
BHB Recreational Therapists support our clients’ goal to improve health and quality of life through a variety of recreational activities, including individual and group opportunities.
We have a wide range of activities to offer our clients that include parades, exercise/walks, cooking and laundry lessons, arts and crafts, church services, luncheons, cruises, shows, gardening, a petting zoo and our Snoezelen Room. Our staff of caring professionals are dedicated to restore, remediate, or rehabilitate our clients in order to improve functioning and independence as well as reduce or eliminate the effects of illness or disability.
Goals of Recreation Therapy
- Promoting social interaction among patients to improve quality of life
- Increasing activity tolerance
- Cognitive stimulation
- Providing opportunities to learn new skills and maintain current level of functioning
- Offering leisure education opportunities
- Functional interventions
- Community resource planning for patients being discharged home
- Community involvement opportunities while in hospital (for example, trips to a coffee shop, a park or a grocery store)
- Opportunities for self-expression
Successful Recreation Therapy
- Reduces anxiety and stress
- Promotes adjustment to disability and/or hospitalisation
- Promotes community integration
- Reduces depression
- Allows the acquisition of knowledge and skills
- Minimises health care costs
- Prevents decline in health status
- Increases independence
- Decreases social isolation
- Decreases focus on pain and increases focus on control
- Reduces hospital stays
- Increase motivation to participate with care plan goals
