ABSTRACT

Activity has commonly been understood as the bingo session, the reminiscence group or the outing. Activity provision has not been a priority and has attracted little resourcing in the way of personnel, training or finance. For a care setting simply to provide an arbitrary programme of group activities and entertainments is not enough. People are occupational beings, and they each have a unique occupational identity. Any care regime that fails to embrace this concept and make provision for individual occupational need cannot call itself truly person-centred. Many symbolic activities may be appreciated across all levels of decline, even into late dementia, because they are activities that centre around feelings and inner pictures, images and memories, some of which may be retained well into late dementia; and, of course, those people on the outside will never know quite how much is retained on the inside.