Innovative Activity #4: Table Ball

I started volunteering at a nursing home and often spend my time working with dementia patients doing one-on-ones.  We do simple activities and focus mostly on sensory things.  I haven’t done a whole lot, just room visits so they become somewhat comfortable with me, or I become more comfortable working with them; familiarizing myself with their hobbies and interests.  “Table Ball” is an activity that I found would work with dementia patients depending what level they are.  It’s a simple activity that addresses many therapeutic benefits such as:  improving hand-eye coordination, socialization, attention span and following simple directions.  These therapeutic goals fit into all four of the domains (physical, cognitive, social and emotional).  People that need to work on their gross motor skills would also benefit from this activity because you can always vary the size of the ball.  I’m not sure that using this activity for at-risk youth, incarcerated individuals or people with attention deficit disorders would benefit.  You don’t need many materials, just push tables together, chairs or places for everyone to sit, and a ball.  To facilitate this activity you wouldn’t need to do much front loading.  If you are doing it with dementia patients you would need to say all the directions and explain them slowly to make sure that everyone understands.  You need to have a lot of patience because people might not remember right away or easily forget.  I found this activity on a great website about Therapeutic Recreation in general, but I looked under the activities section.  You can definitely find more about this activity on the website as well as other activities.       

Table Ball(Submitted by Natasha Pokorny of Nesconset Nursing Center on January 31, 2000)

Size: 10-20

Equipment: Tables that line up together and a ball (preferably a bright color).

Objective: The objective Table Ball is: improved hand eye coordination, socialization, attention span, following of simple directions.

Description: This activity is recommended for residents with Alzheimer's. Place tables end to end (enough to fit about 10 or more people all the way around). Place the ball (we use a bright red one) in front of one of the residents and tell him/her to roll it to someone else at the table. Encourage each resident to keep the ball moving on the table. It should be natural for them. Alzheimer residents in my facility can play this game for an hour before getting tired. It definitely lessens agitation. Another trick I've found for this activity that lessens the agitation of the residents is that using custom stress balls as the table ball lends an extra tactile element to the game and this added dimension provides the participants further stress relief, which is always welcome.

NOTE: Not all Alzheimer residents can play this game depending on what stage of Dementia they have. Place those more capable next to someone who might have difficulty and encourage them to help each other. This increases the socialization. Call out names often to refocus.