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LuAnn Kern — community life

Strives to keep residents busy at Prairie View care center in Tracy

Photo by Jim Muchlinski LuAnn Kern of Tracy fills each day with activities for everyone at the Prairie View care center in Tracy. A combination of large group and self-guided possibilities help to guarantee interesting, active lifestyles for each Prairie View resident

TRACY — Whenever people want to hear about plans at the Prairie View Senior Living in Tracy, they can always ask LuAnn Kern.

She’s served as community life coordinator for the facility’s residents for 32 years. In that role, she’s responsible for planning special events and daily activities that will help residents to stay actively engaged in their surroundings. That in turn helps to ensure that each of them can think positively in a way that helps for maintaining health.

As a 1982 graduate of Southwest Minnesota State University, Kern was looking ahead to a career related to serving older adults. The two main options she considered were adult day care and residential care centers.

“My college internship was in adult day care,” Kern said. “It was rewarding, but I thought I’d probably like a residential setting even more. It involves spending more time with the residents.

Kern interacts with Prairie View’s 37 current residents many times in an average day. It might be to introduce a special program, to wish someone a happy birthday, or to visit while one or more of them enjoy an individualized activity like a jigsaw puzzle.

“I’ve always liked my work because I enjoy the people so much,” she said. “It’s always interesting to hear their personal stories. They have a huge amount to offer because of all their life experiences.”

Whenever possible she looks for ways to enable Tracy area children and teenagers, as well as adults, to enjoy the same opportunity.

Tracy’s public and parochial schools each visit Prairie View on a regular basis. The nursing home visits are a year-long project for fourth graders at Tracy Area Elementary School. The two class sections take turns with their visits, which allows each class to take part in activities every two months.

St. Mary’s Catholic School sends all of their pre-k through 6th grade classes. They all have a particular month. Added together, it leads to interaction with different grade levels all throughout the school year.

Family members of both residents and staff are another good source of interaction. Family members often schedule visits for special events and musical entertainment in addition to regular stops to visit their older relatives. Staff enjoy bringing their children to Baby Days, which offer another opportunity for residents to enjoy the company of energetic young children.

The complete schedule of activities; together with the books, puzzles, DVDs and other self-guided enjoyments; are planned by keeping in mind seven basic components of wellness.

They encompass physical health, emotional well-being and intellectual curiosity. All benefits of a particular special event or everyday activity are considered.

“Most of the time something meets more than one of the needs,” Kern said. “We make sure that at least in some ways we meet all of them.”

One of the biggest changes she’s seen in senior citizen care center activity planning since the 1980s is more individualizing when goals for particular residents are determined.

Some want as many opportunities as possible to branch out from their rooms and to interact with others. Some like to save a significant share of their time for activities they can do on their own.

“It used to be that we wanted everyone to come out and join us when we planned a program,” she said. “If they didn’t, we worried that they might be unhappy. Now we leave that decision up to the individual. It’s all right if they sometimes prefer to do something other than a program.”

She’s found that residents tend to settle into a routine once they get accustomed to a nursing home. They decide for themselves the right combination of interacting and enjoying their personal time.

She enjoys thinking back to how new kinds of technology made their way into residents’ daily lives. It’s not unusual anymore for someone’s cell phone to ring in the middle of a group event. Many residents enjoy helping to decide a play list, a computer based way to play all of their favorite songs.

Prairie View administrator Brian Hinrichs said a well-rounded activity program is vital to the well-being of all care center residents.

“Research consistently shows that being busy leads to better moods, contentedness, pain reduction, less risk of falls and better sleep patterns,” Hinrichs said. “Encouraging everyone to be active is one of the most important things we do.”

Linda Petit, one of Prairieview’s residents, said every day provides at least several things that she enjoys. They might be large group events, or everyday enjoyments such as a conversation during a meal.

Two of her favorite events in March were a visit from a Tracy school class and a sing along led by a piano player.

“I like all of it,” Petit said. “There’s a lot of variety. We always have interesting things to do.”

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