In a community living environment, there are often volunteers or staff that like to engage with the residents. By this interaction, the residents are able to participate in this life review. Therefore, residents are able to improve their life satisfaction. Some of the life review stories mentioned to me were mostly about relationships with family and friends. In a resident’s story, I noticed that they would start off talking about the wonderful events that occurred with their family and friends. Right after that, they mentioned how they regret that they lost contact with some family and friends. During this part of the discussion, their mood and voice changed. I noticed that this was something that played a role in their negative life review, …show more content…
The activity theory states that if the older adult is more active and involved, they are more likely to be satisfied with their life. (572) The more engaged with society, active, energetic and productive an older adult is, the happier they are and successful. There are studies that conclude that the more activities participated the slower development to have a functional disability (572) Being at Arlington Place gives residents the opportunity to increase their leisure activities. As mentioned, there is always an activity that encourages the involvement of the whole community. During my time at Arlington Place, I noticed that during some of the activities there is a low participation. When I asked some residents who did not participate in a specific day or activity there were three common reasons given. The first common reason given was that they were tired. The second common reason was they rather stay in their room and do their own activity. The third reason given was that they did not like that activity scheduled. Since there is a low participation rate, the best thing that Arlington Place can do to promote a healthier socio-emotional development is to ask for suggestions. By asking the residents for suggestions, it is giving the manager and staff the opportunity to include activities that are interesting for certain residents. Hopefully, by then there will be an increase