February 26, 2025
Researchers have developed an assessment tool to help assisted living communities create personalized engagement plans to ensure that residents living with dementia are participating in meaningful activities. As a bonus, they said, the tool requires little staff time and is associated with limited or no cost.
In a study published recently in JAMDA–The Journal of the Post-Acute and Long-Term Care Medical Association, investigators from the University of Maryland and Stevenson University detailed their development of the Meaningful Engagement Assessment, or MEA, tool and findings from its use with 31 residents in two assisted living communities. The authors also provided recommendations for strategies that communities can use to implement the tool.
According to the authors, providing person-centered care for assisted living residents living with dementia means ensuring opportunities to meaningfully engage in activities that provide purpose and value. Although those activities can vary among individuals, they can include self-care, volunteering or interacting with staff members and others.
“Engagement in person-centered, meaningful activity is associated with improved well-being, decreased social isolation, and reduced risk for cognitive impairment among older adults, and may be a strategy for addressing behavioral and psychological symptoms, such as depression, agitation and resistiveness to care,” the authors wrote.
The assessment was developed to collect information on residents’ backgrounds and preferences and to create individualized plans for engaging residents in meaningful activities. The tool consists of three sections focused on collecting information on each resident’s work history, hobbies, and values and attitudes, which feed into ideas for creating meaningful moments.
Staff members at the two assisted living communities received a 30-minute in-service training on how to use the tool with residents, including a brief overview of the benefits of meaningful activity, motivational techniques to encourage resident engagement, and instructions for finishing the assessment. The staff members said the process took 10 to 15 minutes to complete with residents and that some ideas for meaningful activities build on programs already in place at their communities, whereas other activities may lead to new programs.
The investigators identified several strategies to help assisted living communities implement the tool into practice, including incorporating it into the admissions process with new residents, integrating it into life enrichment and activity staff programming, and including it in the process of developing and updating residents’ service plans.
“We learned that focusing on engagement in ‘meaningful moments’ rather than ‘meaningful activity’ helped to encourage all staff to have a role in promoting meaningful engagement with residents, and that this was not something only activity staff should do,” the authors wrote. “Further, particularly for residents with dementia who experience a decline in cognition associated with the progressive nature of dementia, they may not be able to participate in an activity that lasts over long periods of time, and thus, promoting meaningful moments is more suitable for their abilities.”
